It’s a shorter than usual email this week. There’s no job section as that takes by far the most effort, and this week has been hit by a combination of migraine and norovirus.

Another reason it’s shorter is there’s no Botany One output either. We’re now in the middle of switching from WordPress to Ghost, so this will play havoc with publishing systems. If I can get everything finalised this week, it is possible that next week’s email will come via a different system. If that happens, then I’ll migrate the mailing list on Friday or later. I don’t want to make a copy of the list, install it, and then miss anyone who chooses to unsubscribe. There will be an unsubscribe link at the bottom of the new emails, like there is with this one, but I appreciate that if you click unsubscribe and still keep getting emails, it’s annoying. If all really goes well, then you won’t notice anything at all, and you’ll wonder what the fuss was about.

It means that I’ve not kept up with a lot of what has been happening this week, so it’s been good to catch up by going through the systems and finding things I would have overlooked. I can’t say I enjoyed reading this obituary of Steve Long, but I’m glad to have seen it. He’s deeply missed. 

Whether it’s using this system or the new one, there will still be another email of the papers and the news stories you’re sharing on Mastodon and Bluesky at the same time next week. Unless there’s a second strain of norovirus lurking locally, in which case all bets are off. Until next time, take care.

Alun (webmaster@botany.one)

News & Views

In the world’s driest desert, Chile freezes its future to protect plants
Tucked away in a remote desert town, a hidden vault safeguards Chile’s most precious natural treasures. From long-forgotten flowers to endangered crops.

750-year-old Indian poems reveal a landscape scientists got wrong
Old Indian poems and folk songs are revealing a surprising truth about the land. Scientists found that descriptions of thorny trees and open grasslands in texts written as far back as the 1200s closely match today’s savannas in western India. This suggests these landscapes are ancient and natural—not ruined forests. The discovery could reshape how conservation and tree-planting efforts are planned.

Bringing the wilderness to IMPS: Fieldwork in Scotland to generate a lycophyte living collection – likely UK’s largest!
Every good story starts with a mystery. In my project’s case, it’s to do with why we observe a specific mathematic pattern over and over again in nature, when it seemingly provides no obvious benefits.

In conversation with Dr. Cyril Zipfel
Professor Cyril Zipfel is one of the most influential voices in modern plant immunology, renowned for pioneering discoveries that have reshaped our understanding of how plants detect and respond to microbial invaders.

Calling all scientists: Support your Iranian colleagues
There is no need to be a politician to engage in science diplomacy. Do not wait for big initiatives to build bridges. At this moment, Iranian researchers can benefit from kind gestures. Show solidarity.

Plant BLOOME 2026: The ASPB Plant Biology Learning Objectives, Outreach Materials & Education Grant
Plant BLOOME 2026 grant applications will open February 2 with the specific goal of developing education and outreach projects that can be implemented in K–12 classrooms to advance student and teacher knowledge and appreciation of plant biology. Applications may be submitted by current or future ASPB members.

Forest interactions: 48th New Phytologist Symposium
Forests are one of our most precious natural resources, providing habitat and sustenance for a myriad of organisms that interact with one another, and with abiotic factors, in complex and fascinating ways.

Black in Plant Science Summer Studentship 2026
For the second time we will be offering Black undergraduate students from universities across the UK the opportunity to undertake a research experience placement at a UK university or research institution of their choice.

Tenure Will Be Eliminated at Most of Oklahoma’s Public Colleges, Governor Says
Gov. J. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, directed the state’s two-dozen regional universities and community colleges to phase out the practice. Existing faculty members will be grandfathered in.

‘Opposing the inevitability of AI at universities is possible and necessary’
Since the widespread release of ChatGPT in December of 2022, AI has taken over much of the world by storm – including academia. Most of this happened with very little pushback, despite a myriad of issues related to AI technologies.

Index of Inspiring Black Scientists
This Index is a collaborative effort between a committee of scholars and Wiley, to curate a database of Inspiring Black Scientists. It is intended be an open resource to identify and highlight outstanding Black scientists for educational purposes, collaboration, and networking.

This Week in Botany

5 Years Ago: Hungry for fungi: green mycoheterotrophic plants are far more common than previously thought

10 Years Ago: Curious case of Cape coprobotany

15 Years Ago: …and why aspirin is good for you

Scientific Papers

Cell-to-cell connectivity: a future target for crop improvement 🆓
This review focuses on C4 photosynthesis to demonstrate the importance of enhanced cell-to-cell connectivity to improve productivity. Schreier et al also discuss advances in biotechnological tools that are important for both molecular studies and deploying strategies to manipulate plasmodesmata in crops.

SAGA1 and SAGA2 localize the starch sheath to the pyrenoid in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii 🆓
In the leading model alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, Crans etal find that the protein SAGA2 is necessary for early pyrenoid starch sheath biogenesis and works redundantly with its homolog, SAGA1, to localize the starch sheath to the pyrenoid. SAGA2 and SAGA1 were enriched in different regions of the pyrenoid-starch sheath interface, suggesting that they play complementary roles.

SLiM 5: Eco-evolutionary Simulations Across Multiple Chromosomes and Full Genomes 🆓
Haller et al present SLiM 5, a major extension of SLiM's capabilities for simulating multiple chromosomes. Modeling up to 256 chromosomes is now possible, and each chromosome may belong to any of a wide variety of types—not just autosomes (diploid and haploid), but also sex chromosomes (X, Y, Z, and W), haploid mitochondrial and chloroplast DNA, and more.

Aging drives a program of DNA methylation decay in plant organs 💰
DNA methylation typically represses the expression of transposable elements. Studying this process in a short-lived plant, Dai et al. found that epigenetic silencing of transposable elements declined as organs aged. However, this epigenetic aging did not occur in the self-renewing stem cell pools of shoot apical meristems, thereby resetting the aging clock in newly formed organs.

A redox-regulated RCC1-like protein controls catalase activity in Arabidopsis 🆓
Using affinity purification of the UV-B photoreceptor UVR8 coupled with mass spectrometry, Hu et al identified a REGULATOR OF CHROMATIN CONDENSATION 1–like protein in Arabidopsis, which they named CATALASE-INTERACTING RCC1-LIKE 1 (CAIR1). CAIR1 interacts with all three catalase isoforms (CAT1–CAT3) as well as their chaperone NO CATALASE ACTIVITY 1 (NCA1). Loss-of-function cair1 mutants partially phenocopy cat2 and nca1 with reduced catalase activity, enhanced sensitivity to oxidative stress and alkaline growth conditions, and impaired primary root elongation.

Priority effects inhibit the repeated evolution of phototrophy 🆓
Through physiological modeling, Burnetti et al demonstrate that chlorophototrophy and retinalophototrophy together saturate the bioenergetic landscape available to light-harvesting systems. They represent opposite solutions to key biophysical trade-offs: maximizing efficiency per photon versus maximizing metabolic flux, specialization versus versatility, and sophistication versus simplicity.

Mechanical coordination of counter-gradient growth maintains organ curvature in apical hooks 🆓
Using quantitative imaging and computational modeling, Raggi et al show that antagonistic growth gradients at apical and basal regions are both necessary and sufficient to maintain hook curvature, with cuticle integrity being critical for establishing these counter-gradients.

Shaping with water: linking moisture perception to development in plant roots 🆓
This review summarizes advances in hydrosignaling and identifies key knowledge gaps to address how plants sense water. Understanding these processes will guide strategies to improve root water capture for sustainable agriculture.

Plant–fungi interactions in Marchantia polymorpha are associated with horizontal gene transfer and terpene metabolism🆓
El Mahboubi et al investigated the genetic basis of quantitative resistance in M. polymorpha against the fungal pathogen Colletotrichum nymphaeae, a naturally occurring compatible parasite. Through a combination of phenotypic, cytological, and transcriptomic approaches, combined with genome-wide association studies (GWAS), they identified key defense-related genes and pathways.

New methods provide a 300‐year perspective on modern area burned in two wilderness areas of the southwest United States 🆓
Climate change, expanding human ignitions, and increased fuels from fire exclusion are driving increases in area burned and fire severity in dry conifer forests of the western United States. Increasing area burned is occurring against the backdrop of a large fire deficit caused by over a century of fire exclusion. A key land management question is whether historically frequent fire regimes can be restored. Accurate estimates of historical annual area burned (prior to circa 1900) are necessary to evaluate modern area burned (after circa 1900), but are difficult to derive, and have rarely been calibrated or validated against modern fires, leaving their accuracy uncertain. Farris et al developed new methods to use tree‐ring fire scars to reconstruct historical annual area burned and compare it to modern annual area burned.

CLE peptides in plant‐biotic interactions 🆓
By reviewing recent findings on CLE functions, their receptors, and responses across different biotic interactions, Frei dit Frey & Spallek provide insights into the increasingly complex roles of CLEs in plant development and nutrient signaling.

In AoBC Publications