Publication in Phytokeys means the data from the in depth taxonomic work will be shared with a wide audience who can reuse the data for further work with these plants.
The new technology platform can harness the plant's own genes to improve characteristics of sunflower develop genetic traits
and Plant science at NUI Galway and has been published in the journal BMC Plant Biology. Among oilseed crops sunflowers are one of the most important sources of edible vegetable oil for human consumption worldwide.
and discovering new traits in plants. According to Dr Chatterjee: Over the centuries the sunflower has been cultivated for traits such as yield.
The research breakthrough was part of a collaborative project between Bench Bio (India) URGV Lab INRA (France) NUI Galway Plant and Agribiosciences Research Centre (Ireland) and Advanta
Dr Chatterjee is involved also in research in the NUI Galway Plant and Agribiosciences Research Centre (PABC) to improve the bioenergy crop Miscanthus.
That type of community will protect the native plant and wildlife species and benefit sustainable rangeland use at the same time.
Many of the plant and animal species that were there can disappear mostly replaced by cheatgrass that offers poor forage for cattle.
The clues lie in the genome of the carnivorous bladderwort plant Utricularia gibba. The U. gibba genome is the smallest ever to be sequenced from a complex multicellular plant.
The researchers who sequenced it say that 97 percent of the genome consists of genes--bits of DNA that code for proteins--and small pieces of DNA that control those genes.
It appears that the plant has been busy deleting noncoding junk DNA from its genetic material over many generations the scientists say.
Somehow this plant has purged most of what makes up plant genomes. What that says is that you can have a perfectly good multicellular plant with lots of different cells organs tissue types
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.
The bladderwort is an eccentric and complicated plant. It lives in aquatic habitats like freshwater wetlands
To capture prey the plant pumps water from tiny chambers called bladders turning each into a vacuum that can suck in
This surprisingly rich history of duplication paired with the current small size of the bladderwort genome is further evidence that the plant has been prolific at deleting nonessential DNA
but at the same time maintaining a functional set of genes similar to those of other plant species says Herrera-Estrella.
The sequence reveals that of all the plants sequenced so far --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
The plant lineage that includes the sacred lotus forms a separate branch of the eudicot family tree
and so lacks a signature triplication of the genome seen in most other members of this family said University of Illinois plant biology
and Institute for Genomic Biology professor Ray Ming who led the analysis with Jane Shen-Miller a plant
Whole-genome duplications--the doubling tripling (or more) of an organism's entire genetic endowment--are important events in plant evolution Ming said.
which allows the plant to repel water and remain clean) and survival in a mineral-starved watery habitat were retained for example.
By looking at changes in the duplicated genes the researchers found that lotus has a slow mutation rate relative to other plants Ming said.
Transpiration describes the loss of water from plant leaves or needles. Coweeta researchers estimated changes in transpiration at the forest-level since hemlock woolly adelgid infestation by monitoring tree water use
and plant communities in riparian habitats but ecosystem function throughout these areas. The study was conducted at the U s. Forest Service Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in the Nantahala Mountains of western North carolina.
#Plants talk to plants to help them growhaving a neighborly chat improves seed germination finds research in Biomed Central's open access journal BMC Ecology.
Even when other known means of communication such as contact chemical and light-mediated signals are blocked chilli seeds grow better when grown with basil plants.
This suggests that plants are talking via nanomechanical vibrations. Monica Gagliano and Michael Renton from the University of Western australia attempted to grow chilli seeds (Capsicum annuum) in the presence or absence of other chilli plants or basil (Ocimum basilicum.
In the absence of a neighboring plant germination rates were very low but when the plants were able to openly communicate with the seeds more seedlings grew.
However when the seeds were separated from the basil plants with black plastic so that they could not be influenced by either light
or chemical signals they germinated as though they could still communicate with the basil. A partial response was seen for fully grown chilli plants blocked from known communication with the seeds.
Dr Gagliano explained Our results show that plants are able to positively influence growth of seeds by some as yet unknown mechanism.
Bad neighbors such as fennel prevent chilli seed germination in the same way. We believe that the answer may involve acoustic signals generated using nanomechanical oscillations from inside the cell
which allow rapid communication between nearby plants. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Biomed Central Limited.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#Scientists alarmed by rapid spread of brown streak disease in cassavacassava experts are reporting new outbreaks
because agriculture experts have been looking to the otherwise resilient cassava plant --which is used also to produce starch flour biofuel
The leaves of infected plants can look healthy even as the roots cassava's most prized asset are being ravaged underground.
and CBSD and pass it along as they feed on the plant's sap. Compounding the effects of rising temperatures scientists also think that genetic changes have led to the emergence of super whiteflies.
We used to see only three or four whiteflies per plant; now we're seeing thousands said James Legg a leading cassava expert at the International Institute of Tropical agriculture (IITA.
Efforts to breed high-yielding disease-resistant plants suitable for Africa's various growing regions will involve going to South america where cassava originated
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.
The restricted foods included grains beans fruit poultry and plants belonging to the nightshade family
and Janine Sherrier of the University of Delaware's Department of Plant and Soil sciences are studying
if creating an iron shield around the rice roots will slow arsenic movement into other parts of the plant Bais said.
and whether it will lead to reduced levels of arsenic in the rice grains the edible portion of the plant.
#Midwestern frogs decline, mammal populations altered by invasive plant, studies revealresearchers at Lincoln Park Zoo and Northern Illinois University have discovered a new culprit contributing to amphibian decline and altered mammal distribution throughout the Midwest region--the invasive plant European
buckthorn. This nonnative shrub which has invaded two-thirds of the United states has long been known to negatively impact plant community composition
The plant releases the chemical compound emodin which is produced in the leaves fruit bark and roots of the plant into the amphibian breeding pond environment at various times of year.
Sacerdote-Velat and King's research has found that emodin is toxic to amphibian embryos disrupting their development preventing hatching.
The new study demonstrates how a shrub that is viewed by many as a decorative plant can become invasive
The relationship between invasive plants and wildlife is complex. This is the first study of its kind to investigate the association between buckthorn
The studies demonstrate how the high-density prevalence of this nonnative plant is shifting population dynamics
and land managers to take swift and decisive action to work to remove this invasive plant she said.
and compounds naturally found in plants known as phytochemicals. However honey bees have relatively few genes dedicated to this detoxification process compared to other insect species she said.
's research uniquely demonstrates that the effects of glades cascade to a far broader swath of the savanna's plant and animal inhabitants.
This project simply demonstrates that traditional corralling techniques in Kenya leave a landscape-scale legacy that can bolster local abundances of native plants and animals.
and fuel demandsnew discoveries of the way plants transport important substances across their biological membranes to resist toxic metals
That's the conclusion of 12 leading plant biologists from around the world whose laboratories recently discovered important properties of plant transport proteins that collectively could have a profound impact on global agriculture.
These membrane transporters are a class of specialized proteins that plants use to take up nutrients from the soil transport sugar
which is designed to apply basic research on plants to sustainable food and biofuel production said many of the recent discoveries in his
and other laboratories around the world had previously been under the radar--known only to a small group of plant biologists
One of Schroeder's research advances led to the discovery of a sodium transporter that plays a key role in protecting plants from salt stress
When soils are acidic aluminum ions are freed in the soil resulting in toxicity to the plant the scientists write.
Once in the soil solution aluminum damages the root tips of susceptible plants and inhibits root growth
From their recent findings the plant biologists now understand how transport proteins control processes that allow roots to tolerate toxic aluminum.
and zinc deficiencies because their plant-based diets are not a sufficiently rich source of these essential elements the biologists write.
The scientists also discovered transporters in plants and symbiotic soil fungi that allow crops to acquire phosphate--an element essential for plant growth
Nevertheless only 20 to 30 of the phosphate and 30 to 50 percent of the nitrogen fertilizer applied are utilized by plants.
The biologists said crops could be made more efficient in using water through discoveries in plant transport proteins that regulate the stomatal pores in the epidermis of leaves where plants lose more than 90 percent of their water through transpiration.
A recent discovery of protein transporters that move sugar throughout the plant has been used to develop rice plants that confer pest resistance to crops the biologists said providing a novel way to simplify the engineering of crops with high yields and pest resistance
Just as our cell phones will need more advanced technology to carry more information plants need better
but we can make plants better at finding and carrying their own chemical elements. These recent developments in understanding the biology of plant transporters are leading to improved varieties less susceptible to adverse environments and for improving human health.
Says Schroeder More fundamental knowledge and basic discovery research is needed and would enable us to further
and pursue new promising avenues of plant improvement in light of food and energy demands and the need for sustainable yield gains.
Maria Harrison of the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research in Ithaca NY; Luis Herrera-Estrella of the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic institute in Iraputo Mexico;
#In the Northeast, forests with entirely native flora are not the normtwo-thirds of all forest inventory plots in the Northeast
and Midwestern United states contain at least one nonnative plant species a new U s. Forest Service study found.
The study across two dozen states from North dakota to Maine can help land managers pinpoint areas on the landscape where invasive plants might take root.
and potentially invasive plant species. Nonnative or introduced plants are those species growing in areas where they are not normally found.
or escaped cultivation nonnative plants ultimately can become invasive displacing native species degrading habitat and altering critical ecosystem functions.
and fernlike plants conducted on a subset of the region's FIA plots. Among the study's findings:
Atlantic coastal plains of Maine and New hampshire to the southwest into Ohio and into the high hills and semi-mountainous areas of West virginia--contain the greatest assortment of introduced plant species. The study's results can help focus research
How burning plants tell seeds to rise from the ashesin the spring following a forest fire trees that survived the blaze explode in new growth
and plants sprout in abundance from the scorched earth. For centuries it was a mystery how seeds some long dormant in the soil knew to push through the ashes to regenerate the burned forest.
question in plant ecology. In addition to explaining how fires lead to regeneration of forests and grasslands their findings may aid in the development of plant varieties that help maintain
and restore ecosystems that support all human societies. This is a very important and fundamental process of ecosystem renewal around the planet that we really didn't understand says co-senior investigator Joseph P. Noel professor and director of Salk's Jack H. Skirball Center for Chemical
Noel's co-senior investigator on the project Joanne Chory professor and director of Salk's Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology laboratory says the team found the molecular wake-up call for burned forests.
What we discovered she says is how a dying plant generates a chemical message for the next generation telling dormant seeds it's time to sprout.
The Salk scientists'new study sought to uncover exactly how karrikins stimulate new plant growth.
While the new findings were made in Arabidopsis a model organism that many plant researchers study the scientists say the same karrikin-KAI2 regeneration strategy is undoubtedly found in many plant species. In plants one member
and fire became a very important part of ecosystems to free up nutrients locked up in dying and dead plants.
More research is needed to understand exactly how the change in shape of the KAI2 protein activates a genetic pathway that regulates germination says Chory the Howard H. and Maryam R. Newman Chair in Plant Biology and a Howard Hughes Medical
and how plant ecosystems forests and grasslands renew themselves. The work was supported by the National institutes of health grants 5r01gm52413 and GM094428 National Science Foundation awards EEC-0813570 and MCB-0645794 and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
#U s. has surprisingly large reservoir of crop plant diversitynorth America isn't known as a hotspot for crop plant diversity yet a new inventory has uncovered nearly 4600 wild relatives of crop plants in the United states
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
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.
ornamental plants like roses and lilies; Echinacea St john's wort and other medicinal herbs; and what Khoury calls iconic U s. crops including sugar maple and wild rice.
For one although North america is itself not a major center of crop plant diversity it abuts one--Mesoamerica--where crops like corn bean squash
More controversially 12 percent of the taxa in the U s. inventory are nonnative plants while nearly 5 percent are listed as federal or state noxious weeds.
and potentially invasive however these plants are still valuable genetic resources for breeding Khoury says;
Over the coming year Khoury will analyze the geographic distributions of the plants in the list determine
The window for securing these plants so that they're safe and can be used it's narrowing for sure Khoury says.
or plant Gill said. The work which began 10 years ago was supported by the U s. National Science Foundation.
In both cases plants are surrounded by numerous organisms such as weeds pollinating insects fungi blights and diseases and their natural enemies all engaged in the struggle for existence.
Different plant varieties make use of different growing times and different nutrients in the soil.
'Our knowledge of plant breeding and crop physiology has resulted in crops which deliver maximum yield in monocultures.
which plants can detect each other's presence. Plants responses to neighbour plants can differ depending in
whether these neighbours are: friends or a foes a plant of the same species a family member or a genetically identical clone as in many monocultures in the West.
A plant uses shade and filtering of sunlight by a neighbouring plant to detect its vicinity and size.
It may respond with a growth spurt towards the light. But the plant also differentiates between species. Maize growing beside wheat will produce deep roots to avoid those of the wheat
whereas if there are roots of beans close by the maize roots will grow towards them.
Plants from the same mother can also react differently to each other than plants from different mothers.
So it appears that they recognise each other at the family level too. Alien neighbouring plants include weeds
which pose an important threat to crop production. The use of herbicides is an important element of weed control
and other plants and some highly advanced analysis techniques the two researchers and archaeologists Tony Axelsson and Karl-GÃ ran Sjã gren have been able to identify parts of the diet of their Stone age ancestors.'
Nitrogen oxides are created pollutants by cars trucks aircrafts coal plants and other large scale sources. The work presents a dramatic new wrinkle in the arguments for reducing man-made pollutants worldwide said Surratt whose work was published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
and plants but because of the presence of nitrogen oxides it is involved in producing this negative effect on health and the environment.
and utility of plants can be enhanced greatly by improving belowground traits such as root growth. This is a superb example of that reasoning
Dubbed artificial photosynthesis this process mimics how plants convert those same ingredients to energy in the form of sugars.
and not commercial varieties as they are registered not at the Spanish Office for Plant Varieties (OEVV in the Spanish acronym) or the European community Plant Variety Office (CPVO).
and similar plants boost their nitrogen production even in areas with traditionally poor soil quality.
Researchers from the Center of Plant Genomics and Biotechnology at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) and the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at the U s. Department of energy's Argonne National Laboratory report as an advance
and converts it into organic forms that help the plant grow. When the plant dies the excess nitrogen is released back into to the soil to help the next crop.
But often legumes are grown in areas with iron-depleted soil which limits their nitrogen fixation. That's where research can lend a hand.
The Argonne-UPM team has created the world's first model for how iron is transported in the plant's root nodule to trigger nitrogen fixation.
This is the first step in modifying the plants to maximize iron use. The long-term goal is to help sustainable agriculture practices
This is the first high-energy X-ray analysis of plant-microbe interactions. X-rays such as those from the APS provided a high sensitivity to elements and a high spatial resolution not attainable by other means.
As you increase temperature Bowne explains you increase biological activity--be it microbial plant fungal or animal.
or triple cassava and maize yields by introducing disease-resistant plant varieties increasing fertilizer use
and that are grown at planting densities that increase by about 400 plants per acre per year said U of I Ph d. student Ross Bender.
Although macro-and micronutrients are both essential for plant growth and development two major aspects of plant nutrition are important to better determine which nutrients require the greatest attention:
the amount of a nutrient needed for production or total uptake and the amount of that nutrient that accumulates in the grain.
Integration of new findings will allow producers to match plant nutritional needs with the right nutrient source
#Hydrogen sulfide greatly enhances plant growth: Key ingredient in mass extinctions could boost food, biofuel productionhydrogen sulfide the pungent stuff often referred to as sewer gas is a deadly substance implicated in several mass extinctions including one at the end of the Permian period 251 million years ago that wiped out more than three-quarters of all species
But in low doses hydrogen sulfide could greatly enhance plant growth leading to a sharp increase in global food supplies and plentiful stock for biofuel production new University of Washington research shows.
We found some very interesting things including that at the very lowest levels plant health improves.
Dooley started off to examine the toxic effects of hydrogen sulfide on plants but mistakenly used only one-tenth the amount of the toxin he had intended.
Everything else that's ever been done on plants was looking at hydrogen sulfide in high concentrations he said.
Ward suggests that the rapid plant growth could be the result of genetic signaling passed down in the wake of mass extinctions.
At high concentrations hydrogen sulfide killed small plants very easily while larger plants had a better chance at survival he said so it is likely that plants carry a defense mechanism that spurs their growth
when they sense hydrogen sulfide. Mass extinctions kill a lot of stuff but here's a legacy that promotes life Ward said.
Plant lipids are the key to biofuel production and preliminary tests show that the composition of lipids in hydrogen sulfide-treated plants is the same as in untreated plants he said.
When plants grow to larger-than-normal size they typically do not produce more cells
but rather elongate their existing cells Dooley said. However in the treatment with hydrogen sulfide he found that the cells actually got smaller
That means the plants contain significantly more biomass for fuel production he said. If you look at a slide of the cells under a microscope anyone can understand it.
while dining on these pollutants the plant-like organisms could then be used to produce renewable biofuels or food for fish farms.
Potential food source derived from non-food plantsa team of Virginia Tech researchers has succeeded in transforming cellulose into starch a process that has the potential to provide a previously untapped nutrient source from plants not traditionally though of as food crops.
Cellulose is the supporting material in plant cell walls and is the most common carbohydrate on earth.
This new development opens the door to the potential that food could be created from any plant reducing the need for crops to be grown on valuable land that requires fertilizers pesticides and large amounts of water.
However the process works with cellulose from any plant. This bioprocess called simultaneous enzymatic biotransformation
or triple cassava and maize yields by introducing disease-resistant plant varieties increasing fertilizer use
It belongs to a more unusual group of dicotyledons (plants with two seed leaves) known as magnoliids
which are thought to have diverged early in the evolution of flowing plants. By sequencing the mitochondrial genome of L. tulipifera researchers from Indiana University
In addition because plants remain the most promising source of future pharmaceuticals studies of animal medication may lead the way in discovering new drugs to relieve human suffering Hunter
Biofilms are an increasing problem in food processing plants serving as a potential source of contamination said Monica Ponder an assistant professor of Food Science and Technology in the College of Agriculture and Life sciences.
Plants exhibit extraordinary abilities to entrap insects said Loudon lead author of the paper. Modern scientific techniques let us fabricate materials at a microscopic level with the potential to'not let the bedbugs bite'without pesticides.
The types of lily pads and waterborne plants found within these basins helped naturally purify the water.
and soybeans grow it stimulates the growth of plants in the water#algae in the Gulf.
Previously it was not possible to resolve individual proteins on densely labeled heterogeneous surfaces such as those in plant cell walls
#Giving plants the right amount of lightenormous amounts of energy are wasted in greenhouses where our food is grown
as a result of the plants receiving too much and the wrong kind of light. This can also stress and damage the plants.
Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology are working on a globally unique method to measure how much and
what type of light plants want. Current greenhouses use what are known as high pressure sodium lamps
The light spectrum provided by high pressure sodium lamps corresponds very poorly to the spectrum plants use during photosynthesis (see image.
Plants do not receive very much of the blue and red light that they need the most.
which the plants cannot utilize to any great extent. Researchers interpret plant signals The research project at Chalmers aims to ascertain how much
and what type of light different plants require at specific times. In the development of the method a spectrometer is used to measure
which wavelengths are sent back by the plants. The plants send back light in two different ways:#¢
#¢Direct reflection where the light bounces back without being absorbed by the leaf.#¢#¢Fluorescence which is light emitted by plants.
This light is created by photosynthesis and consists of wavelengths other than those from the supplied light.
Researchers can analyse these signals to determine which light plants require. The image below is an approximate diagram of photosynthesis. In reality there are great variations depending for example on
which plant it is where the plant is in its development cycle and how warm it is.
How plants react to light is determined generally by taking manual samples on or close to leaves using special equipment.
This means that an entire plant population can be measured which automatically enables a representative average for the kind of light they need.
Plants'response will control lighting The project's aim is to produce a system that employs the plants'response to automatically regulate the lights in the greenhouse.
Natural sunlight can then be supplemented with light from lamps to ensure the total lighting is required that by the plants both in terms of brightness and light spectrum.
This kind of lamp can also be programmed to provide lighting that is adjusted to the needs of the plants.
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