To Grow or to Defend: That is the Question for Plant Central Metabolism
Research, The Plant Cell, The Plant Cell: In a NutshellFusari 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…
Evidence for mid-Holocene rice domestication in the Americas
Blog, Plant Science Research Weekly, Research, Research BlogRice 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…
"Blue halo" light scattering enhances signalling to bees
Blog, Plant Science Research Weekly, Research, Research BlogVisual 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…
Highly expressed genes are preferentially co-opted for C4 photosynthesis
Blog, Plant Science Research Weekly, Research, Research BlogOne of the great questions of biology is how and why C4 photosynthesis pathway evolved independently more than 60 times. The advantages are obvious (increased productivity), but the underlying molecular predisposition to this transition remains poorly defined. Using a comparative transcriptomics approach…
Insights into land plant evolution garnered from the Marchantia polymorpha genome
Blog, Plant Science Research Weekly, Research, Research BlogThe liverwort Marchantia polymorpha is a fascinating plant for many reasons, including the fact that it is one of the earliest terrestrial species that split off from the rest of the land plants. Therefore, comparisons between Marchantia and green algae or Marchantia and the rest of the land plants tell…
Special Issue: Plant evolutionary developmental biology (Plant Evo-Devo) ($)
Blog, Plant Science Research Weekly, Research, Research BlogThis issue is rooted in the 37th New Phytologist Symposium on ‘Plant developmental evolution’, 2016, that gathered researchers working on the developing field of plant evo-devo. The issue is a wonderful compendium of work presented during the symposium and the contribution of other researchers working…
Completing the whole puzzle of whole genome duplications in land plants
Blog, Plant Science Research Weekly, Research, Research BlogA hot topic in plant evolutionary biology is whole genome duplications (WGDs), in which an organism copies its entire genetic dataset. Having double the required DNA is often viewed as detrimental but can be useful in times of rapid environmental change. Recently, the role of WGDs during plant evolution…
Less is more: Gene loss in flower pollination evolution ($)
Blog, Plant Science Research Weekly, Research, Research BlogThe evolution of flowers solved one of the largest obstacles of plant reproduction, finding a compatible mate. Since plants are sedentary, they are unable to search for a compatible mate like other organisms. Instead they use pollinators to do the searching for them. Flowers use scent and color to attract…
Review: Promiscuity, impersonation and accommodation: Evolution of plant specialized metabolism ($)
Plant Science Research Weekly, Research, Research BlogThe huge set of chemical pathways beyond the conserved primary metabolic network is described as specialized metabolism (formerly known as secondary metabolism). The diversity of specialized metabolites is due to recent evolutionary innovations in enzyme function, as reviewed by Leong and Last. Key processes…