Environmental changes affect the biodiversity (variety of life forms) and productivity (conversion of sunlight energy and carbon into plant biomass) of ecological communities. The collaborative Nutrient Network (NutNet) was created 10 years ago with the goal of synthesizing studies of ecosystem environmental…

Phytochromes were first characterized in classic studies of plants, in which their contributions to seed germination and initiation of flowering were described. Subsequently, phytochromes were identified in cyanobacteria and in non-photosynthetic organisms including fungi. Rockwell and Lagarias review…

The ancestors of land plants were aquatic. Myriad changes accompanied the transition from aquatic to terrestrial life, including changes necessitated by the difference in light intensity and quality. Bryophytes, the earliest diverging land plants, have some characteristics that reveal how plants transitioned…

Nature has published an Outlook feature on the topic of Food Security with the following overview articles, all useful for teaching: Food security,   Nutrition: A world of insecurity,   Agrobiodiversity: The living library,   Bioengineering: Solar upgrade,  Egypt: Space to grow,  Perspective:…