Tag: Botany

If there is one thing we agree on, it is that plants are underappreciated, leading to consequences spanning from ecosystem collapse to poor rates of funding. This effect, and efforts to remedy it, have been discussed in terms of “plant blindness”. In this Perspective, Parsley summarizes many…

Seeds can be dispersed in space (i.e., away from their mother plants) or time (i.e., delayed germination via seed dormancy or persistent soil seed banks). These contrasting strategies have traditionally been considered to increase reproductive success, but our understanding of their relationship is…

Over the past decade, Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) has been used for de novo assembly of crop genomes (i.e., tomato, potato) under the motto “If it tastes good, let’s sequence it”. By contrast, the One Thousand Plant (1KP) Initiative set out to obtain transcriptomic data of phylogenetically…

With a collaborative effort by multiple laboratories across the world, a database of transcriptomics data has been generated for 1124 species encompassing green plants, glaucophytes, and red algae. This extensive work referred to as onekp (one thousand plant transcriptomes) will aid in researchers to…

Grasses scatter their seeds through the process of cell abscission. Losing this trait, in a process known as loss of shattering, was an early step in the domestication of cereals. Interestingly, the abscission zone (AZ) is positionally and morphologically different in different cereals. In order to understand…

Cyanobacteria are important contributors to global carbon fixation. They can be free-living in many different environments, but also form close symbiotic associations with various eukaryotic organisms. Nakayama et al. have idea identified a new type of cyanobacteria that lives as an ectosymbiont in a…

Here’s an interesting question: Without human intervention, why would one find a dense stand of plants, growing in rather nutrient-rich soil? Perhaps you recognized that these conditions suggest seed dispersal by endozoochory, which involves passage through an animal's digestive tract. Spengler and…

The 12 Principles of Plant Biology are a framework to support understanding of the critical roles of plants to create, improve and sustain life. These 12 inquiry-based activities were by Jane Ellis, Mary Williams, and Jeffrey Coker with support from the ASPB Education Foundation. They were developed…