For seeds and fruit in particular bright color is thought to have evolved to attract the agents of seed dispersal especially birds.
and ultimately release its seeds over a wide geographic area. The fruit of this bastard hogberry plant was scientifically delightful to pick says principal investigator Peter Vukusic Associate professor in Natural Photonics at the University of Exeter.
Vukusic and his collaborators at Harvard studied the structural origin of the seed's vibrant color.
They discovered that the upper cells in the seed's skin contain a curved repeating pattern which creates color through the interference of light waves.
The team's analysis revealed that multiple layers of cells in the seed coat are made each up of a cylindrically layered architecture with high regularity on the nanoscale.
#Depression-era drainage ditches emerge as sleeping threat to Cape cod salt marshescape Cod Massachusetts has a problem.
The gene called Scarecrow is discovered the first to control a special leaf structure known as Kranz anatomy
and sugarcane that is better suited to drought intense sunlight heat and low nitrogen. Researchers have been trying to find the underlying genetics of Kranz anatomy
and anatomy Slewinski recognized that the bundle sheath cells in leaves of C4 plants were similar to endodermal cells that surrounded vascular tissue in roots and stems.
which he knew governed endodermal cells in roots. When the researchers grew those plants they first identified problems in the roots then checked for abnormalities in the bundle sheath.
They found that the leaves of Scarecrow mutants had proliferated abnormal and bundle sheath cells and irregular veins.
and Lina Duan found that not all types of roots are inhibited equally. They discovered that an inner layer of tissue in the branching roots that anchor the plant is sensitive to salt
and activates a stress hormone which stops root growth. The study published in the current issue of The Plant Cell is a boon for understanding the stress response and for developing salt-resistant crops.
Roots are associated intimately with their environment and develop highly intricate branched networks that enable them to explore the soil.
The branching roots grow horizontally off the main root and are important for water and nutrient uptake.
This ability to track root growth in real time led the scientists to observe that branching roots entered a dormant phase of growth as salt was introduced.
To understand how Abscisic acid controls growth the investigators devised a strategy to inhibit the response to this hormone in different tissue layers of the root.
Interestingly the'inner-skin'of the root called the endodermis was most critical for this process.
The bad reputation given to goats stems from one of its main virtues: it has an extraordinary capacity to adapt to the most difficult of environmental conditions in places where other domestic livestock species would not survive.
Biologist Ramakrishna Wusirika and his team made their anticancer cocktail with blobs of rice stem-cells called calli
which they cultured in their lab using seeds of the garden-variety rice plant Oryza sativa.
and grassland-dwelling herbivore with the trunk-like snout--living in a network of remote national parks spanning the Peru-Bolivia border.
and effort foraging for food often increasing leaf consumption when their search is quite literally fruitless.
and plants--so the monkeys are forced actually to spend more time seeking out the right foliage to eat such as new shoots
and when turning to foliage for food--as they are forced increasingly to do--they have to be highly selective in the leaves they consume visiting lots of different trees.
Through statistical modelling the researchers were able to determine that it is the'travel time'--rather than the increased foliage intake--causing high levels of stress.
Voles know which acorns have insect larvaeresearchers at the UPM have observed as voles are able to distinguish the acorns containing insect larvae from those that have not.
This fact determines the dispersion and germination of acorns and therefore the regeneration of forests of oaks.
This is the place where researchers at the School of Forestry from the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid have carried out a research on scattering patterns of acorns for voles
when seed are attacked by insects the fact that larva is or not inside of the acorn can modify the dispersion pattern and consequently the regeneration of these types of forests.
The acorns are produced the fruits by oaks holm oaks and cork oaks that perpetuate their species move
and colonize new places. They are autumnal fruits highly valued by wildlife because of its large size its abundance and its high calorie lipid and carbohydrate.
that lay their eggs inside the unripe acorns when they are still growing in the tree.
and feed inside the acorns without altering the external appearance of this fruit. After the acorns fall into the ground
and are reachable for the rest of animals that seek this fruit during the autumn days (wild boar deer and mice among others).
When larva completes its development it drills a small hole out of the acorn and buries itself in the soil
Voles are the main consumers of acorns and they hide this fruit during autumns in order to consume them in winter time.
However many acorns are forgotten in hiding places allowing them a better germination and consequently new trees.
Surprisingly the same acorn is moved usually or stolen by another vole and achieving so a dispersal distance up to hundreds meters with respect to its mother tree
But what do voles do attacked with the acorns by beetle larvae? There is not just an answer
or has stayed in the acorn. Acorns whose larvae had emerged out were rejected rapidly by voles barely touching moving
or storing them. These acorns were exposed on the ground and failed to thrive in a new tree.
However those acorns in which the larva was still inside the fruit were moved and stored by voles.
The study reveals that voles liked these larvae (rich in proteins) and feed on them decreasing the harm produced by these worms over the acorns.
Therefore voles scattered and buried these acorns that finally contributed to generate new plants. The fact that the larva was resulted still inside definitive for the near future of the acorn and therefore the future of oak forests.
The nature maintains its compensation mechanisms and an apparent harmful beetle can be attractive to voles that at the same time releases acorns from this enemy
and help them to thrive thanks to its rich substance what allows them to survive winter
and maintain this favorable relationship between vole and acorn. These results reveal that we do not know ye the behavior of those ecosystems that we aim to preserve.
The knowledge of multiple existing interactions among animals and plants are essential to know what should be protected
The changes suggest dieback of branches and tree falls especially among the older larger more vulnerable canopy trees that blanket the forest.
The biggest surprise for us was that the effects appeared to persist for years after the 2005 drought said study co-author Yadvinder Malhi of the University of Oxford United kingdom. We had expected the forest canopy to bounce back after a year with a new flush of leaf growth
algae blooms. However declines in ice cover on the Great lakes may lengthen the commercial shipping season.
In 2012 with a mean spring temperature of 54 degrees Fahrenheit black cherry blooms were observed as early as May 6.
#For sports fans, the story--not the victor--makes the difference in enjoymenta new study has concluded that sports fans love to root for a hero
Knowing something about the personal lives and personalities of these athletes gives the casual fan a reason to root for
Her research also showed that the people who would have benefitted from the shaman's knowledge practiced small-scale farming of maize manioc and arrowroot and collected palm nuts tree fruits and wild tubers.
The diamondback moth (Plutella xylostella) preferentially feeds on economically important food crops such as rapeseed cauliflower and cabbage.
Miscanthus efficiently moved nitrogen from leaves to root and rhizome systems after the growing season where it could be used again the next year David said.
#Giant tobacco plants that stay young forevertobacco plants bloom when they are just a few months old
Its stem is already ten centimeters in diameter. Whereas in normal tobacco plants the leaves which grow from the bottom of the stem soon turn yellow
and drop off the IME plant's leaves stay healthy and green. This is why the scientists have christened their modified plant species forever young.
It would make no sense to use the technique on rapeseed. Preventing plants from flowering presents a significant advantage in that no flowering means no production of seeds or pollen.
As a result plants have no way of reproducing which means they cannot spread into the environment in an unplanned way.
This process involves using chemical additives to bring about changes in a seed's DNA sequence.
If you try to make a tree of population histories within a species there's always the possibility that you've got genes flowing from one branch to another Pritchard said.
The resulting graph looks less like tree branches and more like a tangled shrub or mass of vines.
The trunk of the shrub represents the major relationships between the groups and the largest branches represent distinct populations as they develop over time from left to right on the graph.
But those tangled vines that crisscross the branches are the key showing migration events where a previously separate population mixed with another rejoining to form a new group at a later point in time.
Pritchard and Pickrell tested the model using DNA from 55 human populations and 82 dog breeds and already found some interesting results.
#Tree seeds offer potential for sustainable biofuelstree seeds rather than biomass or fuel crop plants could represent an abundant source of renewable energy according to research published in the International Journal of Automotive technology and Management.
The study suggests that seeds from the Indian mahua and sal trees have almost as good a thermal efficiency as biodiesel
The use of tree seed oils as a source could have several additional benefits over vegetable seed oils including lower viscosity and greater volatility both
The team points out that vast tonnages of seeds from the deciduous mahua (Madhuca indica) and semi-deciduous sal (Shorea robusta) trees are simply left to waste on the forest floor.
The mahua kernel constitutes 70%of the seed and contains 50%oil which can be extracted at levels of 34 to 37%.
The team has tested now successfully this chemistry on seeds from the mahua and sal trees.
They also demonstrated efficacy with neem seed although suggest the economics of using this species are prohibitive
The mahua takes just ten years to reach seed-producing maturity. Biodiesel production from tree seeds in India will not only reduce the dependence on crude oil imports
but also reduce the environmental impact of transportation and increase employment opportunities the team concludes. Story Source:
The team of researchers have collaborated with experimentalists at the University of Cambridge to create a mathematical model of a plant's petals to help us learn more about iridescence in flowering plants
Understanding how petals produce iridescence to attract pollinators is a major goal in plant biology. An estimated 35 per cent of global crop production depends on petal-mediated animal pollination
Flowers and the animals that pollinate plants interact at the petal surface. The surfaces of many petals have produced regular patterns from folds of the waterproof cuticle layer that covers all plant surfaces.
These patterns can interfere with light to produce strong optical effects including iridescent colours and might also influence animal grip.
Iridescence in plants is produced by nanoscale ridges on the top of the cells in the petal's epidermal surface.
Our team of researchers combined experimental data with mathematical modelling to develop a biomechanical model of the outer layers of a petal or leaf.
We used this to demonstrate that mechanical buckling of the outermost waxy cuticle layer can create the ridge patterns observed in nature on petals and leaves.
He noted that the collaboration took root when Alexander Slesarev a graduate student in his group and Anna Yu.
The beetle invades a tree by landing on the bark and laying an egg. That larva will hatch
and penetrate into the tree feeding on the thin layer between the bark and the heartwood.
As that tree loses leaf material it will try to regain some of it by sending out new shoots lower on the tree.
The C. M. Rick Tomato Genetics Resource Center here at UC Davis played an important role in this study by providing seed of both cultivated tomato varieties and related wild
and sugarcane are able to withstand drought heat nitrogen and carbon dioxide limitations better than C3 crops such as rice wheat barley and oats due to their ability to efficiently make use of carbon dioxide
which is based on the nitrogen absorption through the root. After assessing the efficiency of leaf nitrogen uptake of the two studied species the researcher team from Universidad de Alcalã¡
and Politã cnica de Madrid concluded that this fertilization system can be an efficient tool to complement radical fertilization regimes
--which could be the root of infection to humans said Whittaker. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Cornell University.
Neiker-Tecnalia researchers isolated autochthonous bacterial strains belonging to soil samples and plant tissue. They then selected the best candidates by means of in vitro analysis
which affects roots. In the experiment the effectiveness of other organic fertilizers like the bokashi type compost of Japanese origin will also be tested.
Vidaliaâ sweet onion is a dry bulb onion grown in Georgia as a cool-season (winter) crop.
and nearly ubiquitous infections of Asian elephants that are shed occasionally in trunk washes and saliva of most healthy asymptomatic adult animals.
and Penn State researchers uses digital photography to provide a detailed image of roots from mature plants in the field.
The roots are photographed then against a black background using a standard digital camera pointed down from a tripod.
The resulting images are uploaded then to a server running software that analyzes the root systems for more than 30 different parameters--including the diameter of tap roots root density the angles of brace roots and detailed measures
of lateral roots. Scientists working in the field can upload their images at the end of a day and have spreadsheets of results ready for study the next day.
In the future the system could allow scientists to study crop roots over an entire growing season potentially providing new life cycle data.
#Mangroves protecting corals from climate changecertain types of corals invertebrates of the sea that have been On earth for millions of years appear to have found a way to survive some of their most destructive threats by attaching to and growing under mangrove roots.
and brackish water habitats have networks of prop roots that extend down toward the seafloor and corals are growing on and under these roots.
How does it work? Mangroves and their associated habitats and biological processes protect corals in a variety of ways.
Bathing beaches become unusable on account of algae blooms and entire ecosystems can be threatened. But in our research we turn the argument on its head
#An innovative way to increase flower, seed and fruit productiona scientist from UPM has developed a method to enhance crop yield by the contact of roots aerial parts or even the substratum of the plant fungus'Colletotrichum tofieldiae'.
or weight of its seeds fruits and flower. Â This discovery has been protected by patent and its implementation could lead to cost savings
Researchers have found that by applying a composition that contains Colletotrichum tofieldiae a non-pathogenic fungus for the Arabidopsis thaliana model plant this plant can produce bigger seeds without substantially affecting its vegetative growth.
This method was patented (P201331839-A method to increase the production of flower seed and fruit of plants:
e g. caterpillars) consume more nonnative (introduced from other places) oak leaf material in areas with diverse native plant communities than in less diverse communities.
The researchers examined herbivore damage on leaves of nonnative oak trees in arboreta across the United states. They found that nonnative oaks in regions with high oak species diversity showed more leaf damage than those in regions with low diversity.
While native oaks still suffered more leaf damage than nonnative oaks overall in the absence of native oaks nonnative oaks showed even less leaf damage.
or a meadow most people would probably begin with the plants the species diversity or the color of the foliage.
Among land-use types researchers also found sugarcane in the soils of the Everglades Agricultural area near Lake Okeechobee and wetlands stored the most soil carbon
Now scientists have discovered that plants may package their commensal bacteria inside of seeds; thus ensuring that sprouting plants are colonized from the beginning.
Most of these bacteria are symbiotic drawing from and providing for the plant in ways such as nitrogen-fixing and leaf-protection.
whether commensal bacteria could be found in various plant sources including seed supplies said Dr. Lee.
and grow a bacterium that was packaged inside a seed was quite surprising. The researchers first sterilized and tested the outer portion of a sealed whole seed.
When that was determined to be sampled sterile they and plated the interior of the seeds and placed them in bacterial agar
which they incubated. What they found was the new strain of Bacillus pumilus a unique highly motile Gram-positive bacterium capable of colonizing the mung bean plant without causing any harm.
The finding that plant seeds can be colonized pre may be an important mechanism by which a beneficial plant microbiome is established and sustained.
Instead weather and topography play a greater role in the ecological severity of fires than these bark-boring beetles.
Forests attacked by bark beetles --which burrow into the bark of lodgepole pines to mate and incubate their larvae--can seem nothing more than ample kindling for a raging blaze with their dead wood and dry reddish-brown needles.
The burrows the beetles carve under the bark of pines called galleries choke off water and nutrient circulation in the trees.
The trees die and for the first couple of years they hold on to their dry lifeless needles.
By year three most beetle-attacked trees have entered the gray stage dropping their once green pine foliage becoming needleless wood carcasses.
and stripped sections of bark from over 10000 trees to determine what killed them beetles
or Fire beetle galleries can remain visible under the bark even after fire. As they sifted through the blackened trees
and windy--did areas with more beetle-killed trees show signs of more ecologically severe fires such as more deeply burned trunks
Lodgepole pines are adapted to fire containing two types of seed-carrying cones: those that release seeds as soon as they mature
Beetle-killed trees likely contributed to post-fire seedling establishment too as their seeds remain viable in cones
Only high-reaching char from tall flames reduced the number of seed-spreading cones. The scientists emphasize the results may differ in other forest types or with different lengths of time between beetle outbreaks and fire.
which are trapped inside truffle fruiting bodies. White truffles from the Piedmont region in Italy can reach 5000 Euro per kilogram and black truffles from the PÃ rigord region in Southern France as much as 2000 Euro per kilogram.
Over the past 10 years researchers already suspected that microorganisms trapped inside truffle fruiting bodies contributed to the flavour.
and French scientists studied the white truffle Tuber borchii. It is native to Europe but has been introduced recently in New zealand and Argentina.
because the compounds we investigated are only found in the white truffle Tuber borchii. For this reason in the future they plan to study compounds which are found in the PÃ rigord
and seed production collect insects survey mammals quantify carbon stocks and flows within the ecosystem take soil samples
or other livestock in severely affected marshes can reduce the stem density of phragmites cover by about half in around three weeks said Brian R. Silliman lead author of the new study and Rachel Carson associate professor of marine conservation
and bulldozers to remove its roots. More often than not however it returns. In this study we show that sustainable low-cost rotational livestock grazing can suppress the unwanted tall grass
and can feed on plant tissues containing toxins or deterrents without the expected negative effects. Insects overcome plant defenses by the rapid excretion sequestration
when the city of Houston called for ideas about how to get rid of an estimated 5. 6 million cubic yards of fallen trees broken branches
and dead greenery left behind by the storm. The Rice Biochar Group won the $10000 grand prize in the city's Recycle Ike contest
#Flying doctor bees to prevent cherry diseaseuniversity of Adelaide researchers are introducing a method to use bees to deliver disease control to cherry blossom preventing brown rot in cherries.
The biological control agent contains spores of a parasitic fungus that prevents another fungus that causes the brown rot from colonising the flower.
Every morning the cherry grower sprinkles the spores into a specially designed dispenser that has been fitted in front of the hive.
The bees pick up the spores between their body hairs and bring them to the flowers.
and stone fruit. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Adelaide. Note:
In his trunk a luggage-sized air-sampling instrument sniffs the outside air through a small tube to measure the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane.
The instrument in the trunk quickly detects a large plume of methane emanating from the landfill.
Another volatile group derived from fatty acid is known as the green leaf volatiles. To test how it functions in plant during insect attacks Kolomiets
and his team used a mutant corn plant that could not produce the green leaf volatiles mown-grass smell when cut or torn.
And thatâ##s when they observed that the parasitic wasps didnâ##t pay attention to plants without the green leaf volatile. â#oethere are actually two roles for this moleculeâ#he said. â#oefirst it activates the jasmonate hormone
when an insect chews on the leaf. So this volatile is required to attract parasitoids. We have provided genetic evidence that green leafy volatiles have this dual function â#in the plant they activate production of insecticidal compounds
when they lack the green leaf volatiles. â#Kolomiets hopes to continue the research by testing the impact of the presence of jasmonates and green leaf
By modifying the gene expressions responsible for the branch growth during the first year of woody species researchers of the Centre for Plant Biotechnology
However some lateral buds sprout during the same season such as poplar trees other salicaceae species and many tropical species. This way a syleptic branching can increase de amount of branches leaf
and the corn stalks were bending almost double. From the perspective of an animal living in the corn we thought'That's got to have a big effect.'
#Seeding plant diversity for future generationsoxford researchers have constructed a'hit list'of the plant species most needed to boost the overall diversity of the Millennium Seed Bank
which is storing seeds in its vaults for future generations. The Millennium Seed Bank dries freezes stores
and maintains seeds for future generations to enjoy and use. It aims to save seeds from all the wild plant species of the world
and so far since its founding in 2000 it has banked 14%of them. Scientists from the University of Oxford and the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew which manages the Millennium Seed Bank have shown how by using advanced mathematics they can boost the overall diversity of the seed bank by targeting a'hit list'of particular species
. Their paper also includes maps showing where the species are located so they can be gathered efficiently.
The findings are published in the journal Conservation Biology. The research team constructed a new evolutionary tree of a major family of wild plant species taking the distance between species as a proxy for plant trait diversity.
They calculate that by adding just 10 more carefully chosen species the overall diversity of plant species in the seed bank would be boosted by 10%.
%Furthermore the researchers say that by adding a particular 177 species to the bank the seed vaults would contain almost the entire diversity of the family worldwide (95%.
%More than 150 organisations in 80 countries are involved currently in collecting seeds from wild species. In their study the team from Oxford
if seed priority is determined only by whether they are endangered of economic value or endemic (otherwise known as the 3e approach) this would make the collection significantly less diverse than it could be.
Happily making sure a few carefully chosen species from the'hit list'are collected will keep the diversity of the seed bank high into the future.
The researchers assessed the existing collection of the Millennium Seed Bank by focusing on the legume family.
and beans peanuts clover and lupins--to see how it was represented in the seed bank.
However using the evolutionary tree they found that as the seed bank collection grew in the future
So as the Millennium Seed Bank gets more and more of these conservation priority species the overall diversity of the collection doesn't go up very much.'
you can get more diversity at the cost of getting fewer conservation priority species.'Tim Pearce international coordinator at the Millennium Seed Bank and an author on the study concluded:'
'With the race against time to secure seed before it's gone forever this insight into how best to capture maximum diversity gives us the opportunity to really focus on where in the world we need to target our seed-collecting programmes.'
'John Dickie head of botanical information at the Millennium Seed Bank added:''For a number of years we have been keen to know just how much phylogenetic diversity the total outcome of millions of years of seed plant evolution we have in the vault.
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