Perspective: PLANeT, an exciting plan to fill the knowledge gaps in plant phylogenomics
Plant Science Research WeeklyWe are living at a time where insights into plant diversity, function, and evolution are being revealed at an unprecedented rate, thanks largely to the ability to readily sequence and assemble genomes. A new Perspective by Want, along with a large, international group of co-authors, sets out an exciting…
Pressed for time: Why do herbarium collections still matter in a digital world?
Plant Science Research WeeklyFor centuries, herbarium collections have provided critical data about plant species and their abundance. However, with the development of digital apps such as iNaturalist that allow citizen scientists to enter data about where plants are found, questions arise about whether herbarium collections are…
Unforeseen plant diversity in global dryland
Plant Science Research WeeklyEarth’s terrestrial ecosystems harbor remarkable plant diversity. Some of this diversity can be quantified as functional traits, which provide a measure for diversity in different environments. In this new work, Gross et al. used a functional trait analysis to examine how plants respond to increasing…
Review: Red macroalgae in the genomic era
Plant Science Research WeeklyI highly recommend this excellent and accessible article by Borg et al. that provides an overview of the red macroalgae, which “may have been the first eukaryotic lineage to have evolved complex multicellularity”. It’s full of fascinating information: although 97% of red algal species are marine,…