Yellow box, Eucalyptus melliodora, is an iconic Australian tree and foundation species of a critically endangered woodland community that is the target for restoration efforts. This community is currently severely fragmented, and less that 5 % of its original distribution remains. Models of climate prediction and other environmental changes can and should be used in […]
Plants frequently, seasonally, discard unwanted organs (termed abscission), which include dead leaves, flowers and ripe fruit. Abscission requires tight control to avoid exposure to biotic and abiotic factors, which can lead to tissue damage or infection. Due to the presence of the cell wall, plant cells are tightly linked together, and cell migration is not […]
Guest editor: Danielle Roodt Prinsloo Danielle is a PhD candidate in the Forest Molecular Genetics (FMG) Programme at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. She has been a Plantae Fellow since September 2017, having joined after attending her first ASPB Plant Biology meeting. Danielle is a plant geneticist, and her research focuses on the evolution […]
In its simplest definition, a plastid is an organelle that manufactures and stores essential chemical compounds used by its host cell. Numerous plastids exist beyond the familiar chloroplast. Chromoplasts synthesise and store carotenoid pigments, and provide their hosts with district yellow, orange or red colouring, while amyloplasts lack pigment but synthesise and store starch granules […]
Gender inequality has been a much-discussed topic in recent years, and many studies on gender inequality relating to employment, business success, and opportunities for education have recently been published. Academia is no different, and gender inequality is still a major concern in the Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine (STEMM) fields. Although many agree that […]
Polyploidy can result either through genome doubling followed by intraspecific crosses, or when two genomes from independent species hybridize, leading to autopolyploidy, or allopolyploidy, respectively. Polyploidy is an important evolutionary tool; the resultant redundancy from the duplication of genes allows for neofunctionalisation or subfunctionalisation to occur, which can lead to reproductive isolation, facilitating speciation and […]
For decades, the Gnetophyte lineage has puzzled plant scientists in its correct phylogenetic placement. When taxonomists largely focused on morphological characteristics before the advent of molecular biology, it made sense to treat these apparently intermediate species as a transitional group between the flowering angiosperms and the non-flowering gymnosperms, or as early diverging angiosperms. This month, […]
Often, a wide gap exists between evolutionary research, that is focused on theoretical approaches and organism evolution across multiple timescales, and molecular research aspiring to solve mechanistic puzzles of how particular systems work. Plant Biology is no exception to this, and much can be learnt of plant-microbe interactions by combining mechanistic research with evolutionary approaches […]
The Vikings were notorious raiders for centuries, pillaging and looting the shores throughout the northern hemisphere. Through their successful raids, the Vikings established colonies that grew into states and countries, among these Normandy, England, Sicily, and Russia. The success of the Vikings is due to several factors, including effective dispersal, rapid population growth, resilience, plasticity, […]