Studies examining whether invasive species outcompete native species may reflect bias of researchers. However, rigorous scientific debate and self-criticism may result in self-correction.
In 1849, the Board of Regents of the new University of Wisconsin directed the curation of the state’s plants, animals and minerals in a “cabinet of natural history.” Now, that founding piece of scientific inquiry is re-forming — digitally. A new initiative will centralize the databases of the university’s five natural history museums, which have separated over the decades to specialize and accommodate growing collections.
Traditional ways of analyzing soil texture are slow. Danish researchers have shown a new, high-tech method that is fast, cost-effective, and portable. This technique could make it much easier to understand the soil texture of a particular area—or even large areas across the globe.
Northern China’s roadsides are peppered with deciduous phoenix trees, producing an abundance of fallen leaves in autumn. These leaves are generally burned in the colder season, exacerbating the country’s air pollution problem. Investigators in Shandong, China, recently discovered a new method to convert this organic waste matter into a porous carbon material that can be used to produce high-tech electronics. The advance is reported in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy.
Soils can be extraordinarily biodiverse and differ widely in the kinds of microbial communities that inhabit them. Without a vibrant soil microbial community, humans would not be able to depend on soil for food and other ecosystem services. The “Life Underground: Who, Where, Why?” lecture planned at the Managing Global Resources for a Secure Future ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meeting in Tampa, FL, will address this important topic.
Resistance to wheat streak mosaic virus is one of the characteristics researchers hope to transfer from sea wheatgrass, a distant relative of wheat, into bread wheat.
Genetic and agronomic potential do not result in yield without adequate soil fertility. Crops need to grow in nutrient-rich soil, with available nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. Recent research also shows the importance of micronutrients. The “Plant Nutrients: The Disconnect Between Local Needs and Global Production” lecture planned at the Managing Global Resources for a Secure Future ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meeting in Tampa, FL, will address this important topic.
Using plants and trees to make products such as paper or ethanol leaves behind a residue called lignin, a component of plant cell walls. That leftover lignin isn’t good for much and often gets burned or tossed into landfills. Now, researchers report transforming lignin into carbon fiber to produce a lower-cost material strong enough to build car or aircraft parts.
UGA researchers pinpoint a mutation that triggered the development of the modern tomato from its tiny berry-sized ancestor
Photosynthesis provides energy for the vast majority of life on Earth. But chlorophyll, the green pigment that plants use to harvest sunlight, is relatively inefficient. To enable humans to capture more of the sun’s energy than natural photosynthesis can, scientists have taught bacteria to cover themselves in tiny, highly efficient solar panels to produce useful compounds.
The study analyzed multiple species of Inga, a genus of tropical trees that produces defensive chemicals, and their various insect herbivores. The researchers found that closely-related plants evolved very different defensive traits. Additionally, their analysis revealed that herbivores may drive evolution of plant defenses, but may not show coevolutionary adaptations. Instead, they may ‘chase’ plants based on the herbivore’s own traits at the time they encounter a new host.
Nectar, the high-energy ‘honey’ produced by flowers, might be a brilliant distraction technique to help protect a flower’s reproductive parts, according to new research. Rather than merely providing a ‘come-on’ to bees and other insects to attract them to pollinate the flower, nectar could be playing a much more subtle and entrancing role.
Researchers from the University of Delaware have joined a team from Western Sydney University in Australia to examine the addition of silicon to the soil in which plants are grown to help strengthen plants against potential predators.
Biologists conducted the first large-scale experiment on a Superfund site using poplar trees fortified with a probiotic — or natural microbe — to clean up groundwater contaminated with trichloroethylene, or TCE.
Urban forests capture pollutants, store carbons and have other significant benefits that can be quantified
The introduction of exotic, nonnative plant species to U.S. grasslands has led to changes in prairie phenology, or the timing of seasonal changes. A new study from an Iowa State University scientist details the magnitude of those changes.
Plots of foliage thicken in Cornell University’s Climate Change Demonstration Garden. Located at the Cornell Botanic Gardens, these raised beds provide a living illustration of how future temperature conditions may affect plants.
Flowering plants with at least 300,000 species are by far the most diverse group of plants on Earth. They include almost all the species used by people for food, medicine, and many other purposes. However, flowering plants arose only about 140 million years ago, quite late in the evolution of plants, toward the end of the age of the dinosaurs, but since then have diversified spectacularly. No one knows exactly how this happened, and the origin and early evolution of flowering plants and especially their flowers still remains one of the biggest enigmas in biology, almost 140 years after Charles Darwin called their rapid rise in the Cretaceous "an abominable mystery". A new study, coordinated by Juerg Schoenenberger from the University of Vienna and Hervé Sauquet of the Université Paris-Sud and published in "Nature Communications" reconstructs the evolution of flowers and sheds new light on what the earliest flowers might have looked like.
A binational research group is collecting data on the migratory pattern of Mexican long-nosed bats. These bats pollinate the agave plant from which tequila is made. They migrate toward the corridor of agave and columnar cactus from Mexico to the Southwestern U.S. Researchers hope to save the species by understanding more about their migration.
Are your plants waxing poetic? The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) August 1 Soils Matter blog post explains how plants and soil communicate—even without the advantage of words.
A research group led by Raimund Fromme has gained important new insights by resolving with near-atomic clarity, the very first core membrane protein structure in the simplest known photosynthetic bacterium, called Heliobacterium modesticaldum (Helios was the Greek sun god). By solving the heart of photosynthesis in this sun-loving, soil-dwelling bacterium, Fromme’s research team has gained a fundamental new understanding of the early evolution of photosynthesis, and how this vital process differs between plants systems.
How does a giant, foul-smelling plant from the tropics fare in an outdoor garden in New York? We will soon find out.
New research could help claypan farmers improve yields while saving costs.
Redox metabolism was engineered in Yarrowia lipolytica to increase the availability of reducing molecules needed for lipid production.
Two new varieties of kidney beans – Talon and Rosie – have recently been released. Both show improved resistance to root diseases that commonly cause crop loss.
Swarms of the insect have descended broadly across the region and that delicate leaf-cutting they practice is making some trees and other plants in the area look as if it’s November rather than mid-July.
The DOE has announced funding for new research centers to accelerate the development of specialty plants and processes for a new generation of biofuels and bioproducts.
Using a genetically modified line of switchgrass, scientists reduced plant cell wall recalcitrance while increasing sugar release over three generations.
Iowa State University scientists are untangling the complex genetic mechanisms that control growth and stress response in plants. A recently published paper from the researchers identifies a group of proteins that may be of interest to plant breeders eager for crop varieties that will withstand dry conditions.
In a paper published today in PLOS Genetics researchers conducted a high-throughput phenotyping experiment to map genes that regulate plant height in the model bioenergy grass Setaria.
When does a (typically) vegetarian caterpillar become a cannibalistic caterpillar, even when there is still plenty of plant left to eat? When the tomato plant it’s feeding on makes cannibalism the best option. “It often starts with one caterpillar biting another one in the rear, which then oozes. And it goes downhill from there,” says University of Wisconsin–Madison integrated biology Professor John Orrock.
A University of Kentucky plant pathologist is part of an international team of researchers who have uncovered an important link to a disease which left unchecked could prove devastating to wheat.
Researchers at the DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute, in collaboration with the Joint Genome Institute, are reporting the first whole-genome sequence of a mutant population of Kitaake, a model variety of rice. Their high-density, high-resolution catalog of mutations facilitates the discovery of novel genes and functional elements that control diverse biological pathways.
Researchers have discovered the earliest evidence of wild potato use in North America. This is the first archaeological study to identify a spud-bearing species native to the southwestern United States, the Four Corners potato (S. jamesii), as an important part of ancient human diets.
Most organisms share the biosynthetic pathways for making crucial nutrients because it is is dangerous to tinker with them. But now a collaborative team of scientists has caught plants in the process of altering where and how cells make an essential amino acid.
The peanut and its kin have not one, but two ways to make the amino acid tyrosine, one of the 20 required to make all of its proteins, and an essential human nutrient. That might seem small, but why this plant family has a unique way to make such an important chemical building block is a mystery that has captured the attention of Hiroshi Maeda, a professor of botany at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
A new study by a team of plant biologists from the National University of Singapore found that some plants may selectively kill part of their roots to survive under cold weather conditions.
Scientists at Berkeley Lab and Michigan State University are providing the clearest view yet of an intact bacterial microcompartment, revealing at atomic-level resolution the structure and assembly of the organelle's protein shell. This work can help provide important information for research in bioenergy, pathogenesis, and biotechnology.
Ancestors of the iconic New Zealand Christmas Tree, Pōhutukawa, may have originated in Australia, new fossil research from the University of Adelaide suggests.
Researchers find a grass gene affecting how plants manage water and carbon dioxide that could be useful to growing biofuel crops on marginal land.
Plants and soil microbes may be altered by climate warming at different rates and in different ways, meaning vital nutrient patterns could be misaligned.
A plant found throughout Southeast Asia traditionally used to treat arthritis and rheumatism contains a potent anti-HIV compound more powerful than the drug AZT, according to a new paper published in the Journal of Natural Compounds.
In 1859, Charles Darwin included a novel tree of life in his trailblazing book on the theory of evolution, On the Origin of Species. Now, scientists from Rutgers University-New Brunswick and their collaborators want to reshape Darwin’s tree.
Penn State University joined the International Alliance for Phytobiomes Research as a sponsoring partner, both organizations announced on June 6.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have identified a gene that keeps grasses from entering their flowering cycle until the season is right, a discovery that may help plant breeders and engineers get more from food and energy crops.
A new study by scientists at the University of Birmingham has revealed a group of cells that function as a ‘brain’ for plant embryos capable of assessing environmental conditions and dictating when seeds will germinate.
A molecular system for artificial photosynthesis is designed to mimic key functions of the photosynthetic center in green plants—light absorption, charge separation, and catalysis—to convert solar energy into chemical energy stored by hydrogen fuel.
Corn, beans, and squash—the “three sisters”—have traditionally been grown together for best results. The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) June 1 Soils Matter blog post explains how companion plantings use plants’ strengths to their best advantage.
Camille Delavaux studies mycorrhizal fungi and plant pathogens in the context of plant invasion in tropical ecosystems.
Researchers have figured out how a once-defeated bacterium has re-emerged to infect cotton in a battle that could sour much of the Texas and U.S. crop. And it boils down to this: A smart bacteria with a sweet tooth.
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