Recent Posts

Community diversity outweighs effect of warming on plant colonization ($) (Global Change Biol.)

Several studies have addressed growing concerns regarding increases in exotic plant colonization of communities in response to a warming climate. However, both abiotic (e.g., warming climate) and biotic (e.g., changes in community diversity) shifts can be simultaneous results of warming and both can…

Review: Characteristics, drivers and feedbacks of global greening (Nat. Rev. Earth Environ.)

Whenever we talk about global trends there are of course local variations. Here, Piao et al. discuss recent trends of global greening, which is occurring at arctic as well as temperate and tropical regions. Overall, this greening is attributed to increasing atmospheric CO2, which promotes plant growth,…

Review: Molecular bases of responses to abiotic stress in trees (J. Exp. Bot)

Much of our understanding of abiotic stress response comes from studies on short-lived annual plants, for good reasons: they are small and easy to study, their short-generation time makes them amenable to genetic studies, and most of our food comes from annual plants. Trees are more difficult to study,…

Increasing risks of multiple breadbasket failure under 1.5 and 2 °C global warming (Ag Systems)

Crop yields are vulnerable to rising temperatures and changes in precipitation. Here, Gaupp et al. model the projected crop yields at 1.5 versus 2.0 degrees of additional warming, as part of the HAPPI experiment (perhaps a misnomer: Half a degree Additional warming, Prognosis and Projected Impacts).…

β-cyclocitral is a conserved root growth regulator (bioRxiv)

Enhancing root growth can aid plant survival in challenging environments such as salty soils. Dickinson et al. built upon a previous study that identified D15, an inhibitor of lateral root development. They treated roots with D15 and also components of a small-molecule library to search for suppressors…