Stomata, epidermal pores for gas exchange, first appeared about 400 million years ago. Since then, there has been functional and structural diversification. Qu et al. synthesize the developmental genetics underpinning diverse stomata, spanning from bryophytes through monocots and the astomatous (without stomata) marine angiosperms, as revealed by seagrass. Curr. Opin. Genet. Devel. 10.1016/j.gde.2017.02.001
Vernoux and Robert discuss research presented at the Auxin 2016 meeting, held in October 2016 on the island of Hainan, China. The result is a nice review of very current research, spanning auxin metabolism and signaling, the role of auxin in development, interactions between auxin and other signals, and modeling and synthetic biology approaches to […]
Molecular Plant Pathology has released a new series of free reviews on “Challenges in Bacterial Molecular Plant Pathology.” Topics so far: Morris et al. Frontiers for research on the ecology of plant-pathogenic bacteria: fundamentals for sustainability 1111/mpp.12508 Pfeilmeier et al. Bacterial pathogenesis of plants: future challenges from a microbial perspective 1111/mpp.12427 Sundin et al. Bacterial […]
The British Society for Plant Pathology (BSPP) has created a set of profiles of people with careers in plant pathology. Some are available as webpages and others as PDFs. A few examples: Molecular Plant Virologist Katherine A. Steele Plant Disease Advisor Fiona Burnett Professor of Plant Pathology Matt Dickinson (PDF) Agrochemical Research Scientist Siân Deller […]
Molecular Plant Pathology has released a new series of free reviews on “Challenges in Bacterial Molecular Plant Pathology.” Topics so far: Morris et al. Frontiers for research on the ecology of plant-pathogenic bacteria: fundamentals for sustainability 1111/mpp.12508 Pfeilmeier et al. Bacterial pathogenesis of plants: future challenges from a microbial perspective 1111/mpp.12427 Sundin et al. Bacterial […]
The very earliest step in lateral root formation is “priming”, a still-elusive process that establishes a subset of cells as competent to form lateral roots. In this Perspective, ten Tusscher and Laskowski review evidence for priming, which involves oscillations of auxin level or responsiveness and oscillations of gene expression. The authors describe several models for […]
Insight: Why we need more non-seed plant models There is much to be learned from comparing plant genomes, but as Rensing writes, currently available genomic data are skewed heavily towards angiosperms. He argues that a richer understanding of plant evolution depends upon gaining insights into the non-seed plants, including ferns, mosses and liverworts, but particularly […]
There is much to be learned from comparing plant genomes, but as Rensing writes, currently available genomic data are skewed heavily towards angiosperms. He argues that a richer understanding of plant evolution depends upon gaining insights into the non-seed plants, including ferns, mosses and liverworts, but particularly the different lineages of charophyte algae, some of […]
Chris Martine is a Professor of Biology at Bucknell University. He is also an excellent communicator of plant science, through his YouTube series “Plants are Cool Too“. In 2016 he was awarded the New England Biolabs Passion in Science Award. You can see him talk about his science communication efforts in this short talk presented […]