Feature Channels: Plants

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For millions of years, a variety of large herbivores, or megafauna, influenced terrestrial ecosystems.

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Biologists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have demonstrated a new way to boost the oil content of plant leaves and seeds.

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Nitrate radicals (NO3) from air pollution degrade the scent chemicals released by a common wildflower, drastically reducing the scent-based cues that its chief pollinators rely on to locate the flower.

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Tiny external structures in the wax coating of blueberries give them their blue colour, researchers at the University of Bristol can reveal.

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In a changing climate, corn growers need to be ready for anything, including new and shifting disease dynamics. Because it’s impossible to predict which damaging disease will pop up in a given year, corn with resistance to multiple diseases would be a huge win for growers.

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When it comes to making fuel from plants, the first step has always been the hardest — breaking down the plant matter

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Researchers have discovered two new freshwater hyphomycete (mould) species, Acrogenospora alangii and Conioscypha yunnanensis, in southwestern China.

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Extreme events wipe out entire forests, dramatically eliminating complex ecosystems as well as local communities.

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A team of researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently published a pioneering study that answers a central question in biology: how do organisms rally a wide range of cellular processes when they encounter a change—either internally or in the external environment—to thrive in good times or survive the bad times? The research, focused on plants and published in Cell, identifies the interactions between four compounds: pectin, receptor proteins FERONIA and LLG1 and the signal RALF peptide.

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Dr. Yoon Hyung Chul and his colleagues at the Clean Fuel Research Laboratory of the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER) develop an advanced catalyst for ammonia synthesis.

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Efforts to breed more adaptable crops benefit from testing locations with wide ranges of weather, according to a study co-authored by an Iowa State University expert on phenotypic plasticity, the disparate ways plants respond in different environments.

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Research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and UC Davis sheds new light on how to access the sugars locked up in plants to produce petroleum-free fuels, chemicals, and medicines.

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A team of scientists led by Berkeley Lab has developed a new model that incorporates genetic information from microbes.

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Plants are continuously evolving new immune receptors to ever-changing pathogens.

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PNNL scientists developed a new method to map exactly how a fungus works with leafcutter ants in a complex microbial community to degrade plant material at the molecular level. The team’s insights are important for biofuels development.

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In a significant development for personalised nutrition, researchers in Italy have cultivated microgreens with bespoke nutritional profiles to serve individual dietary requirements.

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Green roofs have become increasingly popular thanks to their benefits related to climate adaptation, mitigation, and urban biodiversity management.

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RUDN University agronomists have figured out how to increase the content of iodine and selenium necessary for humans in fenugreek. Fenugreek is used as a medicinal raw material and also for making seasonings.

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RUDN University agronomists have shown that in low concentrations colchicine improves millet yield and grain quality. Besides, it does not hurt the genetic diversity of subsequent generations.

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RUDN University agronomist and colleagues from Iran obtained environmentally friendly silver nanoparticles from paulownia fruit. They have proven to be an effective remedy against a fungus that affects bananas and other fruit crops.

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University of Florida scientists published a new study in which they show how they used artificial intelligence to confirm that an app can identify poison ivy.

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This study is led by Prof. Jian-Xiang Liu (State Key Laboratory of Plant Environmental Resilience, College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang University).

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What does an asparagus have in common with a vanilla orchid? Not much, if you are just looking at the two plants’ appearances.

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Argonne collaborates with Purdue University on new research aimed at lowering the cost of developing small nuclear reactors.

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New research led by a University of Wyoming graduate student shows that invasive ants in a Kenyan savanna have caused lions to change their predatory behavior.

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The intricate dance of nature often unfolds in mysterious ways, hidden from the naked eye. At the heart of this enigmatic tango lies a vital partnership: the symbiosis between plants and a type of fungi known as arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi.

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European forests with a greater diversity of tree species are more resilient to storms, according to new research published in the British Ecological Society journal, Functional Ecology.

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West Virginia University is being recognized as a certified affiliate of the Bee Campus USA program for its buzzworthy efforts to support pollinators on campus by increasing native plants and providing nest sites.

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Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are good at cleaning up common pollutants but often miss tiny amounts of other harmful substances, known as trace organic pollutants.

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This month, the Ecological Society of America spotlights the challenge posed by invasive alien species in China with the release of a Special Feature, “Management of Biological Invasions in China,” in the latest issue of its journal Ecological Applications.

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Mannon Gallegly, a West Virginia University plant pathology professor emeritus who has spent more than 70 years developing hearty tomato varieties for home gardeners, has created his fourth and final tomato — the West Virginia ’23, dubbed “Mannon’s Majesty.”

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The way trees grow together do not resemble how branches grow on a single tree, scientists have discovered.

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Interest in forest restoration has increased in recent years, both on the part of companies and financial markets and in academia and government.

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Life on Earth runs on a 24-hour cycle as the planet turns. Animals and plants have built-in circadian clocks that synchronize metabolism and behavior to this daily cycle.

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A new computational framework created by Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers is accelerating their understanding of who’s in, who’s out, who’s hot and who’s not in the soil microbiome, where fungi often act as bodyguards for plants, keeping friends close and foes at bay.

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ST. LOUIS, MO., January 17, 2023 — The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center announced today that Penny Pennington has been elected chair of the Danforth Center Board of Directors.

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The unique underwater kelp forests that line the Pacific Coast support a varied ecosystem that was thought to have evolved along with the kelp over the past 14 million years.

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Fractional Vegetation Cover (FVC), key for ecological studies, has historically been mapped at coarse resolutions. Recent high-resolution satellite data have increased the demand for finer FVC products.

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Some invasive plants can form persistent banks of seeds that remain under the soil for years, and this makes their eradication practically impossible.

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Soy compounds called isoflavones are among the plant-derived compounds that may significantly reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence or death, according to a new meta-analysis co-directed by investigators from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. The results were published Jan. 10 in the journal JNCI Cancer Spectrum.

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RUDN University biologist described a green method for obtaining copper oxide nanoparticles from the noni plant (Morinda citrifolia), common in Asia. These nanoparticles have pronounced bactericidal and fungicidal properties.

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What’s all the buzz about? Most garden enthusiasts know that certain flowers can attract pollinators.

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Frequent visits to oil palm plantations are leading to a sharp increase in mortality rates among infant southern pig-tailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina) in the wild, according to a new study published in Current Biology.

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A global study organized and led by Colorado State University scientists shows that the effects of extreme drought – which is expected to increase in frequency with climate change – has been greatly underestimated for grasslands and shrublands.