The reason is that rice seedlings were grown traditionally in paddies and then transplanted to the fields by hand.
Because the seedlings of both weedy and cultivated rice look alike farmers often don't realize they have a problem until the field is infested really.
Although renowned for their ability to chew through a gardener's prize petunias or strawberry patch still relatively little is known about the effect these munching molluscs have on large scale grassland conservation projects.
which may reduce the number of seedlings becoming established and overall plant diversity. Publishing their results next month in a special edition of the academic journal Annals of Botany the research team has shown the impact of Deroceras reticulatum
in order to help seedlings establish and contribute towards successful restoration. Herbivory is a fundamental driver of plant diversity explains Dr Sarah Barlow who carried out the work
and help to fix Nitrogen into the soil benefitting not just the clover but all the meadow seedlings.
and is particularly fond of seedlings which is why they can have such a devastating impact on this type of conservation project.
On the bright side said Dr Barlow the slugs did not like the seedlings of some of the desirable wildflowers such as wood cranesbill rough hawkbit and greater burnet.
#Even slight temperature increases causing tropical forests to blossoma new study led by Florida State university researcher Stephanie Pau shows that tropical forests are producing more flowers in response to only slight increases in temperature.
and rainfall affect the number of flowers that tropical forests produce. Results showed that clouds mainly have an effect over short-term seasonal growth
While other studies have used long-term flower production data this is the first study to combine these data with direct estimates of cloud cover based on satellite information.
The results of the study Clouds and Temperature Drive Dynamic Changes in Tropical Flower Production was published July 7 in the journal Nature Climate Change.
and how many flowers they produce is one vital sign of their health said Pau an assistant professor in Florida State's Department of Geography.
and flower production will decrease. We're not seeing that yet at the sites we looked at
and cloudiness on local flower production Betancourt said. It confirms other recent findings that in the tropics even a modest warming can pack quite a punch.
and year-to-year flower production in two contrasting tropical forests--a seasonally dry forest on Barro Colorado Island Panama and an ever-wet forest in Luquillo Puerto rico. The seasonally dry site according to Pau
has been producing more flowers at an average rate of 3 percent each year over the last several decades an increase that appears to be tied to warming temperatures.
We studied flowers because their growth is a measure of the reproductive health and overall growth of the forests and because there is long-term data on flower production available Pau said.
The amount of sunlight reaching tropical forests due to varying amounts of cloud cover is an important factor just not the most important
when it comes to flower production. Clouds are a huge uncertainty in understanding the impacts of climate change on tropical forests Pau said.
The cherry laurel is an evergreen and if it disperses on the forest floor it may create too much shade for the existing flora on the forest floor to survive.
While mature trees can use their roots to tap water deeper in the soil competition with dense understory vegetation can make it difficult for seedlings to survive.
#Flowers: Pistil leads pollen in life -and-death dancepollination essential to much of life on earth requires the explosive death of the male pollen tube in the female ovule.
Millions of times on a spring day there is a dramatic biomolecular tango where the flower rather than adorning a dancer's teeth is the performer.
and how their expression destines the tube for self-sacrifice allowing flowering plants to reproduce. High school biology leaves off with this:
Among the fundamental biology questions at play in the sex lives of flowers for example are how cells recognize each other know what to do
Then he took the pollen from each to pollinate normal flowers. The pollen tubes from all three plants reliably made it to ovules
How patterns on flowers help bees spot their first nectar-rich flowerbumblebees searching for nectar go for signposts on flowers rather than the bull's eye.
n and Catherine Plowright from the University of Ottawa in Canada shows that the markings at the center of a flower are not as important as the markings that will direct the bees to the center.
which visual stimuli do they use to identify that first flower that will provide them with the reward they are looking for?
versus pattern position in a group of bumblebees that have searched never for nectar before i e. flower-naive bees.
and video recordings the researchers exposed a total of over 500 flower-naive bees to two types of patterns on artificial clay flowers:
Radial patterns are composed of distinctly colored lines extending from the outside of the flower converging at the center where nectar
either central or peripheral on the corolla (or petals) of the flower. They found that both visual properties had significant effects on flower choice.
However when pitted against each other pattern type trumped position. Bees preferred radial patterns over concentric patterns.
It appears that the visual cues from the radial pattern guide the bees to the periphery of the flower.
Once there they will find the rewarding nectar in the center of the flower. The researchers conclude:
The behavior of bees has been shaped over the course of evolution as adaptations to flower appearance.
Flowers may be taking advantage of a principle that will be familiar to students and teachers alike:
or break environmental collective actionssustainability programs are a Goldilocks proposition--some groups are too big some are too small
As part of the initial study two-year old seedlings were planted in the spring of 2010 grown over the summers of 2010 and 2011
In the first Kling said seedlings were ordered from 10 different commercial sources across 8 states.
The seeds and seedlings for the two new evaluations were treated in greenhouses over the winter
and professor of biology at Saint joseph's University advises that it's best to investigate the plant that's choking your columbines
All you have to do to enhance the wild pollinators of crops on farmland is increase flower abundance in field margins roadsides or crop edges.'
Also endangered bee species often specialize on flowers that cannot easily be established on farmland such as heather or bilberry.
During cold northern winters deer seek out stands of evergreens with dense crowns such as eastern hemlock northern white cedar and balsam fir.
and Pinot noir were the best cultivars to grow in Burgundy Dr. Mcgovern noted. What we haven't had is clear chemical evidence combined with botanical and archaeological data showing how wine was introduced into France
From the beginning promiscuous domesticated grapevines crossed with wild vines producing new cultivars. Dr. Mcgovern observes a common pattern for the spreading of the new wine culture:
Cacao plant breeders trying to produce a delicious high-yield strain through cross breeding have met with limited success. So the genetic marker could in theory be used to screen young seedlings
and if these young seedlings grow fast enough to escape from herbivores then woodlands can expand. With our analysis of satellite data we could now assess how general this response is.
As a result of this impaired dispersal palm regeneration became less successful in the area with less-vigorous seedlings germinating from smaller seeds.
#Gene that helps honey bees find flowers (and get back home) discoveredhoney bees don't start out knowing how to find flowers
or even how to get around outside the hive. Before they can forage they must learn how to navigate a changing landscape
wheat maize rice barley rye millet sorghum soybean sunflower potato cassava sugarcane sugar beet oil palm rapeseed (canola) and groundnut (peanut.
the uglier a flower or weed the more allergy-inducing its pollen tends to be.
The relationship between allergy-causing pollens and their flowers is something like a beauty pageant Valet said.
A general rule of thumb is that flowers that smell or look pretty attract insect pollenators so they are not generally important allergens
Not only is the Lilliputian violet among the smallest violets in the world it is also one of the most diminutive terrestrial dicots.
Eugenia is a large worldwide genus of woody evergreen trees and shrubs of the myrtle family that is particularly diverse in South america New caledonia and Madagascar.
The new species E. petrikensis is a shrub growing to two meters with emerald green slightly glossy foliage and beautiful dense clusters of small magenta flowers.
and represent a rare example of an insect mimicking a gymnosperm 165 million years ago before an explosive radiation of flowering plants.
Newer and more effective methods can begin to be used to ensure that the over 200 million tree seedlings planted each year in Sweden are as strong healthy and well-adapted as possible for both poor and rich soil areas in different parts
#Bee and wild flower biodiversity loss slowsdeclines in the biodiversity of pollinating insects and wild plants have slowed in recent years according to a new study.
British wildflower diversity had declined about 20 per cent from the 1950s to the 1980s but again the declines have ceased in the past 20 years.
and of wildflowers had declined. Our new work is based on a much bigger dataset and improved analytic methods and it reveals much more detail about the scale and timing of biodiversity losses.
or to the quality of the pollination services they provide to wildflowers or agricultural crops.
#Drought makes Borneos trees flower at the same timetropical plants flower at supra-annual irregular intervals.
In addition mass flowering is typical for the tropical forests in Borneo and elsewhere where hundreds of different plant timber species from the Dipterocarpaceae family flower synchronously.
ie. some seeds and tuberous plants such as freshwater chestnuts lotus root and the fern root the addition of starch from palms was unexpected totally and very exciting.
or nightshade family includes a wide range of flowering plants some of which are important agricultural crops.
and with 1500 species is one of the largest genera of flowering plants. Solanum has 13 major evolutionary groupsor clades.
All representatives have beautiful clusters of flowers varying in color from deep purple through fuchsia and pale pink to pure white.
flowers. The discovery is a boon for organic as well as conventional tree fruit growers. The researchers recently published their study in the journal Biological Control.
They found that plantings of sweet alyssum attracted a host of spiders and predator bugs that in turn preyed on woolly apple aphids a pest that growers often control with chemical sprays.
After one week aphid densities were significantly lower on trees adjacent to flowers than on control plots
To select an appropriate flower for the study the researchers screened six candidates including marigolds and zinnias.
Hoverflies and other insects are attracted to flowers because they can find food in the form of pollen and nectar.
Researchers compared plots of apple trees with sweet alyssum to plots without flowers. While the sweet alyssum attracted hoverflies as desired Gontijo
and colleagues found few hoverfly larvae showing that the hoverflies had only a marginal effect on the aphid population.
when the researchers found a diverse community of spiders and predatory insects in the plots with sweet alyssum.
But was it really the flowers that attracted aphid predators? The scientists sprayed protein markers on the sweet alyssum
and later captured insects and spiders at a distance from the flower plots. Many of the insects and spiders tested positive for the proteins proving that they had visited the flowers.
The woolly apple aphid is surprisingly damaging for an aphid attacking tree shoots and roots said Betsy Beers an entomologist based at WSU's Tree Fruit Research
and Extension Center in Wenatchee and Gontijo's mentor and co-author on the paper. These aphids also secrete a sticky liquid called honeydew
The researchers state that the use of sweet alyssum for biological control can be integrated easily with standard orchard-management practices
The article Flowers promote aphid suppression in apple orchards was published in the July 2013 edition of Biological Controlstory Source:
or nightshade family includes a wide range of flowering plants some of which are important agricultural crops.
and with 1500 species is one of the largest genera of flowering plants. Solanum has 13 major evolutionary groupsor clades.
All representatives have beautiful clusters of flowers varying in color from deep purple through fuchsia and pale pink to pure white.
flowers. The discovery is a boon for organic as well as conventional tree fruit growers. The researchers recently published their study in the journal Biological Control.
They found that plantings of sweet alyssum attracted a host of spiders and predator bugs that in turn preyed on woolly apple aphids a pest that growers often control with chemical sprays.
After one week aphid densities were significantly lower on trees adjacent to flowers than on control plots
To select an appropriate flower for the study the researchers screened six candidates including marigolds and zinnias.
Hoverflies and other insects are attracted to flowers because they can find food in the form of pollen and nectar.
Researchers compared plots of apple trees with sweet alyssum to plots without flowers. While the sweet alyssum attracted hoverflies as desired Gontijo
and colleagues found few hoverfly larvae showing that the hoverflies had only a marginal effect on the aphid population.
when the researchers found a diverse community of spiders and predatory insects in the plots with sweet alyssum.
But was it really the flowers that attracted aphid predators? The scientists sprayed protein markers on the sweet alyssum
and later captured insects and spiders at a distance from the flower plots. Many of the insects and spiders tested positive for the proteins proving that they had visited the flowers.
The woolly apple aphid is surprisingly damaging for an aphid attacking tree shoots and roots said Betsy Beers an entomologist based at WSU's Tree Fruit Research
and Extension Center in Wenatchee and Gontijo's mentor and co-author on the paper. These aphids also secrete a sticky liquid called honeydew
The researchers state that the use of sweet alyssum for biological control can be integrated easily with standard orchard-management practices
The article Flowers promote aphid suppression in apple orchards was published in the July 2013 edition of Biological Controlstory Source:
#New non-GM technology platform for genetic improvement of sunflower oilseed cropscientists have developed techniques for the genetic improvement of sunflowers using a non-GMO based approach.
The new technology platform can harness the plant's own genes to improve characteristics of sunflower develop genetic traits
Among oilseed crops sunflowers are one of the most important sources of edible vegetable oil for human consumption worldwide.
Sunflower and other oilseed crops are the source of the vast majority of vegetable oil used for cooking and food processing.
Over the centuries the sunflower has been cultivated for traits such as yield. However along the way many useful genetic variations have been lost.
This new technology allows us to pinpoint key genetic information relating to various useful traits in the sunflower including wild sunflower species. It gives us a method to quickly create variability for further breeding to enhance the quantity quality and natural
The latest research results provide valuable insight into the development of taste in widespread cultivated plants as Skerra explains:
and flowers and you can do it without the junk. Junk is needed not. Noncoding DNA is DNA that doesn't code for any proteins.
and water and its flowers generate heat to attract pollinators. Now researchers report in the journal Genome Biology that they have sequenced the lotus genome
--and there are dozens--sacred lotus bears the closest resemblance to the ancestor of all eudicots a broad category of flowering plants that includes apple cabbage cactus coffee cotton grape melon peanut poplar
soybean sunflower tobacco and tomato. The plant lineage that includes the sacred lotus forms a separate branch of the eudicot family tree
Because of its dense evergreen foliage and dominance in riparian and cove habitats eastern hemlock plays an important role in the area's water cycle regulating stream flow year round.
Rhododendron a woody evergreen shrub common in southern Appalachian forests is one of the species replacing eastern hemlock trees.
Dietary nicotine may hold protective keynew research reveals that Solanaceae--a flowering plant family with some species producing foods that are edible sources of nicotine--may provide a protective effect against Parkinson's disease.
but when the plants were able to openly communicate with the seeds more seedlings grew.
and working with scientists to mine the cassava gene bank at CIAT in Colombia--the biggest repository of cassava cultivars in the world.
The aim will be to develop a bold regional strategy that will gradually step-by-step village-by-village replace farmers'existing infested cassava plants with virus-free planting material of the best and most resistant available cultivars.
and production of CMD and CBSD resistant cassava cultivars more appealing to farmers. There also will be discussions about cost-effective
But by the following spring when the rains arrived there was a burst of flowering plants amid the nutrient-rich ash
including close relatives of globally important food crops such as sunflower bean sweet potato and strawberry. The findings which were published today (Apr 29) in the journal Crop science are good news for plant breeders who've relied increasingly in recent years on the wild kin of domesticated crops as new sources of disease resistance drought tolerance
For instance a wild sunflower species that breeders have used to restore fertility and create salt tolerance in cultivated sunflower is imperiled also globally.
Another 62 taxa in the inventory are listed under the U s. Endangered Species Act. In fact an estimated 30 percent of U s. plant species are now of conservation concern says Khoury who is also a doctoral student at Wageningen University in The netherlands.
U s. wild relatives of the world's most important food crops--including strawberry sunflower sweet potato bean stone fruits
nationally-recommended perennial ryegrass cultivar and by 43 per cent compared to meadow fescue. It is thought the reduced runoff is achieved
The team tested a wide variety of sources of biomass--leaves stems flowers seeds and legumes--with particular interest in those with high protein content
#Tulip tree reveals mitochondrial genome of ancestral flowering plantthe extraordinary level of conservation of the tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) mitochondrial genome has redefined our interpretation of evolution of the angiosperms (flowering plants) finds research in biomed Central's open
It belongs to a more unusual group of dicotyledons (plants with two seed leaves) known as magnoliids
and L. tulipifera still contains many genes lost during the subsequent 200 million years of evolution of flowering plants.
In fact one trna gene is no longer present in any other sequenced angiosperm. Prof Jeffrey Palmer who led this study explained By using the tulip tree as a guide we are able to estimate that the ancestral angiosperm mitochondrial genome contained 41 protein genes 14 trna genes seven trna
genes sequestered from chloroplasts and more than 700 sites of protein editing. Based on this it appears that the genome has been more
Brachypodium distachyon belongs to the Poaceae family of monocot plants which comprises temperate grasses and cereals and constitutes one of the most economically important plant families in the modern world.
and study monocot genes of agronomic interest. Explains Dr. Kobayashi Head of the Experimental Plant Division.
Presumably the irreplaceable host of M. chomskyi are the beautiful flowers of the widespread Onagraceae or the so-called Evening-primrose family.
Unlike the other representatives of the family that chew leaves or flower petals many species of Megachile neatly cut circular pieces of leaves or petals for nest construction.
Despite their tiny brains bees are smart enough to pick out the most attractive flowers by watching other bees and learning from their behaviour.
By using simple logic they see which coloured flowers are the most popular and conclude that those of the same colour must also contain lots of energy-rich nectar.
Most worker bees visit thousands of flowers every day in their search for nectar to feed their queen's brood.
Copying flower colour choices may be a shortcut to success bypassing the exhausting process of exploring each flower to see
Bees were trained to know that sugar could be found on flowers where other foragers were present.
The bees then watched through a screen as their companions chose a particular flower colour
When later allowed to choose a flower colour alone the test bees copied their companions'choices.
if they knew that those bees were visiting bitter-tasting flowers. Instead the test bees actively avoided the flower colours that other bees chose.
The flowers were made bitter using quinine--a flavour used in tonic water which bees typically dislike.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Queen Mary University of London. Note:
Jaskot says the Green peas are exciting candidates to help astronomers understand a major milestone in the development of the cosmos 13 billion years ago.
Metals in flowers may play role in bumblebee declinebeekeepers and researchers nationally are reporting growing evidence that a powerful new class of pesticides may be killing off bumblebees.
and nickel found in flowers growing in soil that has been contaminated by exhaust from vehicles industrial machinery and farming equipment.
but can do so only after they visit a contaminated flower. Therefore the insects are exposed to toxins before they even sense the presence of metals.
Ashman and George Meindl coauthor of the study and a Phd candidate in Ashman's lab studied bumblebee behavior using the Impatiens capensis a North american flower that blooms in summer.
Its flowers are large producing a high volume of sugar-rich nectar each day--an ideal place for bumblebees to forage.
and aluminum in the flowers'nectar influenced bumblebee behavior Ashman and Meindl used two groups of uncontaminated flowers one group of flowers contaminated by nickel and another contaminated by aluminum.
When a bumblebee visited a flower in an array the entire visitation was recorded as well as the time spent (in seconds) foraging on each individual flower.
This included monitoring whether the bee moved from a contaminated to a noncontaminated flower whether the bee moved to the same group it had sampled just or whether the bee left the flower group without visiting other individual blooms.
Following each observed visit all flowers in the array were replaced with new flowers to ensure accurate results.
We found that the bees still visited those flowers contaminated by metal indicating that they can't detect metal from afar said Ashman.
However once bumblebees arrive at flowers and sample the nectar they are able to discriminate against certain metals.
In the study the bees were able to taste discriminate against and leave flowers containing nickel.
However this was not the case for the aluminum-treated flowers as the bees foraged on the contaminated flowers for time periods equal to those of the noncontaminated flowers.
It's unclear why the bees didn't sense the aluminum said Meindl. However past studies show that the concentrations of aluminum found throughout blooms tend to be higher than concentrations of nickel.
This suggests that the bees may be more tolerant or immune to its presence. These results also have implications for environmentally friendly efforts to decontaminate soil in particular a method called phytoremediation--a promising approach that involves growing metal-accumulating plants on polluted soil to remove such contaminates.
because the bees observed in the study foraged on metal-rich flowers. She states that further research is needed to identify plants that are ecologically safe
Most lettuce varieties flower in spring or early summer and then drop their seeds--a trait that is likely linked to their origin in the Mediterranean region
The current cultivars that are being sold for production are sterile but new hybrids that are being developed are fertile so Quinn said there could be the potential for confusion.
One gene we're interested in is the so-called evergreen locus in peaches which extends the growing season said Daniel Rokhsar DOE JGI Eukaryotic Program head under
#Social bees mark dangerous flowers with chemical signalsscientists already knew that some social bee species warn their conspecifics
Researchers at the University of Tours (France) in collaboration with the Experimental Station of Arid Zones of Almeria (Spain) have demonstrated now that they also use chemical signals to mark those flowers where they have previously been attacked.
whether bees are capable of using evasive chemical signals to mark those flowers where they have previously been attacked.
Evasive alarm pheromones provoke an escape response in insects that visit a particular flower and until now we were not sure of the role that these pheromones played in social bees.
Our results indicate that unlike solitary bees social bees use this type of alert system on flowers to warn their conspecifics of the presence of a nearby predator as explained by Ana L. Llandres from the University of Tours
Solitary bees responded similarly in the case of flowers that had been attacked by control predators and control flowers.
Despite approaching both types of flower the probability of landing on control flowers was much higher.
The scientists also detected that the probability of social bees rejecting flowers was much greater
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