A weekly plant science research roundup curated and summarized by our Plantae Editors and Fellows
I suspect if we asked someone to describe a fossil we’d hear a lot about dinosaur bones. Certainly, science museums are full of fossilized animal remains, which have greatly informed our understanding…
This article poses the interesting question of whether we can use our knowledge of plant cell wall-modifying, carbohydrate-active enzymes to produce biobased materials. Specifically, the authors point…
Many studies have demonstrated the importance of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in communication between plants. VOCs emitted by a plant damaged by herbivory promote defenses in nearby plants. It is…
Although clusters of functionally related genes are common in prokaryotes, until recently it was thought that they were not a feature of eukaryotic genomes. However, several studies have identified biosynthetic…
Albert Einstein once said, “The only thing that you absolutely have to know is the location of the library.” Libraries house vast troves of information for readers to explore, analyze, and use. With…
The hourglass model of embryogenesis was proposed in the 1990s, and extended to green plants and fungi in the 2010s. During animal embryogenesis, the very earliest stages (post fertilization) are morphologically…
Plants undergo a series of physiological processes when transitioning from the juvenile to the vegetative phase, and then vegetative to the reproductive phase. RNA-Seq offers substantial potential for…
Cassava (Manihot esculenta) is a vital starchy crop essential for food security in Sub-Saharan Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia. A recent study on cassava by Rüscher et al. provides important…
Don’t miss this exciting Virtual Issue from New Phytologist on “plant-microbe-microbe” interactions. That’s not a typo – many of the articles address the signals that coordinate such multi-factorial…
The composition of plant-associated microbes is influenced by plant genetics, immune responses, environmental factors, and interactions between microbes. During disease development, the microbial community…
Auxin is an extremely important plant hormone that must be precisely controlled. Auxin-like herbicides have been developed that are often more stable than the natural auxins, thus their application can…
A recent paper by Scheuring and colleagues investigates vacuole biogenesis in meristematic cells of Arabidopsis thaliana, challenging earlier models of vacuole formation. Vacuoles are crucial organelles…
Each week, the Plantae editors select new plant science research articles to highlight. The short summaries describe the question addressed and key findings, with links to the article.
