Plantae Presents – Carlos Ballaré and Haim Trebes Recorded Wednesday November 25 10am EST, 4pm CET Carlos Ballaré: Phytochrome, jasmonate, and the balance between growth and defense Prof. Carlos L. Ballaré studies the mechanisms by which plants obtain environmental information. Carlos graduated as Ingeniero Agrónomo and MSc (University of Buenos Aires, 1984, 1989) and PhD […]
In a rosette-forming plant like Arabidopsis, leaf radial angle is optimized to prevent self-shielding. By contrast, in a plant such as sorghum, leaf vertical angle affects self-shading. A “smart canopy” model has been proposed in which upper leaves have a more upright orientation to allow more light to reach the lower leaves. Mantilla-Perez looked at […]
Within the bacterial genus Xanthomonas there are many plant pathogens, some of which colonize living cells within leaves, and others of which are vascular pathogens that colonize and spread through vascular tissues. Gluck-Thaler et al. looked at genomes from sets of closely related bacteria that are either vascular or nonvascular plant pathogens. They identified a […]
During the Triassic and Jurassic periods (approximately 250 – 140 million years ago), Earth was dominated by gymnosperms including conifers. Today, the number of species and individuals is greatly reduced from their heyday, and instead Earth is dominated by angiosperms. Although it is widely stated that angiosperms outcompeted gymnosperms and pushed them to the harsher […]
Review: Integration of reactive oxygen species and hormone signaling during abiotic stress During its life cycle, a plant experiences many types of abiotic stress including drought. While waiting for the next drops of water, a thirsty plant acclimates by initiating a series of tolerance responses. Stress perception is followed by stress-induced signaling which can include […]
At the beginning of 2018, Plant Physiology initiated a program to introduce several promising early-career scientists to the editorial board and engage their expertise in assessing and writing about research published in the journal. Over the past three years, these scientists brought their passion for science to the journal, communicating to our readers each month […]
Gramene (www.gramene.org) is a curated, open-source, integrated data resource for comparative functional genomics in crops and model plant species. It launched 20 years ago and has continually grown and expanded to incorporate new tools and resources. This update by Tello-Ruiz et al. describes its current iteration, #63. Gramene “hosts 93 reference genomes—over 3.9 million genes […]
Many people are familiar with the popular houseplant Cephalocereus senilis, which also known as old man cactus because it is covered with long white hairs that are thought to protect it from frost and UV light. A similar function is described for the wooly fibers that cover the alpine plant Dionysia tapetodes, investigated here by […]
Review: Homoeologous exchanges, segmental allopolyploidy, and polyploid genome evolution Polyploidy or whole-genome duplication (WGD) is an important process in plant evolution and speciation. Additional sets of chromosomes can be derived from intraspecific genome duplication (autopolyploidy) or hybridization of divergent genomes and chromosome doubling (allopolyploidy). In early stages of allopolyploid formation, the interaction and recombination between […]