Soil is the growth substrate for most plants and contributes to their success through factors such as microbial ecology, chemistry and presence of nutrients, and physical properties including how compact it is. With increasing soil compaction (bulk density), roots are less able to penetrate, resulting in shorter, wider roots; these shorter roots are often less […]
Horizontal genome transfer by cell-to-cell travel of whole organelles Textbooks tell us that eukaryotic cells acquired first mitochondria and later plastids through assimilation and retention of useful prokaryotes, but textbooks also imply that these were one-off occurrences that happened long ago. In the past several years, evidence has been accruing that genomes from organelles can […]
More than half of human calories come from rice, wheat, and corn, although many other cereals have been domesticated as food crops. Several of these “orphan” cereal crops and their wild relatives are being studied with the goal of diversifying our food supply, which is particularly important due to climate change. Ye and Fan review […]
Review: Orphan crops and their wild relatives in the genomic era More than half of human calories come from rice, wheat, and corn, although many other cereals have been domesticated as food crops. Several of these “orphan” cereal crops and their wild relatives are being studied with the goal of diversifying our food supply, which […]
A HUGE thank you to the Plant Physiology Assistant Features Editors who are rotating off today. We’ve very much enjoyed working with you for the past few years, best wishes for your futures! Nathaniel Butler (University of Wisconsin, United States) Anne-Sophie Fiorucci (Université Paris-Saclay) Charlotte Gommers (Wageningen University, The Netherlands) Meisha Holloway-Phillips (University of Basel, […]
Origins Cast your mind back to March 2020. You’ll surely remember learning about lockdowns, lab closures, and conference cancellations. At the time, many plant scientists were scrambling to learn how to work from home, keep experiments going, and juggle course loads and family or loneliness. At ASPB we were focused on finding new ways to […]
More then four years ago, we started a weekly column to highlight a few plant science articles each week. The series lauched with the name What We’re Reading, but at some point was rebranded to Plant Science Research Weekly. From early on, we’ve drawn on the interests and talents of the Plantae Fellows to fuel […]
We’ll be back! Join us in 2021 for more free Plantae Presents webinars. Here’s our schedule so far – mark your calendars! We’ll be updating this post regularly with titles and registration links as they are ready. Visit this page for more information about each of these events. All webinars 10 am EST / 3 […]
What exactly is the growth/defense tradeoff? This review is an excellent place to ask. Zhang et al. review evidence that shows that it is much more than a competition for limiting resources – the plant actively responds to stress in ways that may slow growth but ultimately promote survival. The authors thoroughly summarize key stress […]