Tag: Evolution

Peppers are an economically and ecologically important crop plants, but genomic resources are rather scarce. The authors provide here new reference genome sequences for three species of hot pepper (Capsicum baccatum, C. chinense and C. annuum), identifying evolutionary forces that have shaped pepper…

Sex determination in the animal kingdom has been relatively well studied, with two main systems responsible for the sexes in mammals, insects, birds, reptiles and fish; XY and ZW sex-determination. Although much is still unknown about these systems, with many exceptions being discovered to previously…

Potatoes originated in the Andes of southern Peru, and are now the third most important crop for direct human consumption. Hardigan et al. sequenced 67 potato relatives, including South American landraces, North American cultivars and wild-diploid species to learn about the genetics of modern potato’s…

Long ago, the dinosaurs roamed amongst majestic forests of ancient tree ferns, cycads and conifers. But longer ago still, prior to the birth of both the kings of the animal and plant kingdoms, majestic forests of gigantic trees were unimaginable, with the landscape covered in small plants lacking leaves,…

The C4 Rice project aims to transition rice from a C3 crop to one that performs C4 photosynthesis, in order to realize a predicted 50% increase in yield.  Here, Wang et al. expressed a positive regulator of chloroplast development, the maize GOLDEN2-LIKE transcription factor, in rice.  The resulting…

Fusari et al. perform GWAS to explore primary plant metabolism https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00232 By Corina M. Fusari and Rik Kooke Background: Primary metabolites such as sugars, organic acids, and amino acids are essential chemical compounds that drive plant growth and development by providing…

Rice is one of our most important crops, and previous work has indicated that it was domesticated independently in Asia (Oryza sativa) and Africa (Oryza glaberrima). Using archeological approaches, Hilbert et al. for the first time show evidence for domestication of a rice species (Oryza sp.) in the…

Visual and other cues attract pollinators. Bees vision is skewed towards blue colors, but they also visit non-blue flowers. Moyroud et al. looked at how petal surface textures affect bee responses. The authors observed that similar parallel cuticular striations in diverse angiosperm lineages show convergent…