A study of Britain’s native flowering plants has led to new insights into the mysterious process that allows wild plants to breed across species – one of plants’ most powerful evolutionary forces.
The genus Endiandra of the Lauraceae family has approximately 100 species and its diversity is strongly centered in south-eastern Malaysia and Australia. In China, there are only three recognized Endiandra species (two endemic) and they are distributed in Yunnan, Guangxi, Hainan and Taiwan.
A research group characterizes a new transcription factor that regulates, during the ripening of strawberries, the production of anthocyanins responsible for giving them their red hue.
Genomic surveillance could aid in tracking pathogen evolution and crop resistance, preventing crop failures, suggests a new study.
Now a global study has found mosses are not just good for the garden, but are just as vital for the health of the entire planet when they grow on topsoil. Not only do they lay the foundations for plants to flourish in ecosystems around the world, they may play an important role mitigating against climate change by capturing vast amounts of carbon.
Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are toxic compounds generated by living systems through aerobic respiration and photosynthesis. Now, researchers have studied the mechanism to regulate the activity of ROS-producing enzymes and revealed that ROS is involved in the growth of spruce and synthesis of lignin, a key cell wall component. The findings could help develop technologies for producing valuable timber-based materials and boost the growth of coniferous trees.
Researchers got into the forests on the island of Dominica after 9 months of the Category 5 Hurricane Maria and examined the trees closely. They discovered that while 89% of the trees sustained damage — 76% of which had major damage —only 10% were immediately killed. Many of the trees had resprouted.
Did humans favor certain wild plants for domestication because they were more easily “tamed”? New research calls for a reappraisal of the process of plant domestication, based on almost a decade of observations and experiments. The behavior of erect knotweed, a buckwheat relative, has paleoethnobotanists completely reassessing our understanding of plant domestication.
Tobacco plants have been engineered to manufacture an alluring perfume of insect sex pheromones, which could be used to confuse would-be pests looking for love and reduce the need for pesticides.
Insights into gene and protein control systems that regulate the use of nitrogen by plant roots could help develop crops that require less nitrogenous fertilizers to produce acceptable yields.
