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Does growing your own veg contribute to food security?
The noted government minister Chris Grayling has suggested that the UK can deal with any food shortages after Brexit. A thinker noted for the concision of
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To drink, or not to drink – do trees coordinate their water supply with environmental conditions?
Predicting future responses of trees to drought is notoriously difficult, requiring consideration of many factors, including temperature, soil type, and how trees regulate their water usage.
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Wassailing to wake the trees
January 17 marks twelfth night in the Julian Calendar. It also marks the traditional night of wassailing, a ritual to drive evil spirits from the orchard.
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The plant that farms other plants for food
It’s not just animals that the bladderwort, Utricularia, eats. Two new papers are finding out how bladderworts also digest microscopic plants.
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Can carnivorous plants control an invasive hornet?
Betteridge’s law of headlines states: “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.” But some scientists in France have tested Sarracenia to find the answer is more like ‘not yet’.
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Pitcher plants eat their spider competitors
Some spiders go after the same prey that pitcher plants want. What happens when the two compete?
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Botanists set the relationship status of Plants, Pollinators and Antagonists to “It’s complicated”
What happens when a flower is eaten or pollinated? A study in the American Journal of Botany shows one interaction can impact in an unexpected way on another.
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Virus gives light a dark side
What is it that causes a virus to replicate? A team studying Coccolithovirus in algae found light was a crucial element in reproduction.
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Aldrovanda vesiculosa, the Fly Trap’s endangered cousin
The Venus Fly Trap is not the only carnivorous plant that snaps, but you’re much less likely to see Aldrovanda vesiculosa, even though it can live around the world.
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Plant Pathologists are heroes
Understanding an imaginary virus could have real consequences.
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The Linnean Society and Taxonomy
On September 7, 2018, The Linnean Society held a conference “How Are We Communicating the Importance of Taxonomy and Systematics?”
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Fungus gnats see red when pollinating
Some plants rely on gnats for pollination, but they also rely on fungi to provide a food source for the next generation of gnats.