Soil-dwelling fungi study shows extent of worldwide distribution
(Phys.org)—An international team of researchers has conducted a worldwide census of fungi that live in plant roots and in so doing has found them to be surprisingly broadly spread. In their paper...
View ArticleThe role of plant science in food security
"Increased demand for food, driven by population growth and dietary change, along with the degradation of natural resources and climate change, render the challenge of achieving food security for all...
View ArticleHigh yield crops a step closer in light of photosynthesis discovery
Crops with improved yields could more easily become a reality, thanks to a development by scientists.
View ArticleTeam develops 'electronic plants'
Researchers at Linköping University in Sweden have created analog and digital electronics circuits inside living plants. The group at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics (LOE), under the leadership...
View ArticleResearchers find size isn't everything in the world of plant evolution
Researchers from the University of Bristol have uncovered one of the reasons for the evolutionary success of flowering plants.
View ArticleIncreased CO2 in the atmosphere has altered photosynthesis of plants over the...
Researchers at Umeå University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences have discovered that increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have shifted photosynthetic metabolism in plants over...
View ArticleResearch may lead to new control for devastating rice disease
In a "clash of the microbes," University of Delaware plant scientists are uncovering more clues critical to disarming a fungus that is the number one killer of rice plants.
View ArticleResearchers uncover what makes plants 'clot'
University of Delaware researchers have identified two novel molecular players necessary to regulate plasmodesmata—communication channels in plants that bridge individual cells with their neighboring...
View ArticleCalifornian sudden oak death epidemic 'unstoppable,' new epidemics must be...
New research shows the sudden oak death epidemic in California cannot now be stopped, but that its tremendous ecological and economic impacts could have been greatly reduced if control had been started...
View ArticleZoologist bemoans the continuing loss of butterfly species
(Phys.org)—Jeremy Thomas, a zoologist with the University of Oxford, has written a Perspective piece for the journal Science offering an overview of the declining numbers of butterfly species around...
View ArticleFlight of the bumble bee reveals plants' flair for flower arranging
Plants can maximise their chances of reproduction by taking advantage of how insects move between flowers when they track down nectar, a study suggests.
View ArticleEvolution drives how fast plants could migrate with climate change
New research from the University of British Columbia suggests evolution is a driving mechanism behind plant migration, and that scientists may be underestimating how quickly species can move.
View ArticlePaper highlights the dismal state of dry forests in tropical regions in the...
(Phys.org)—A very large team of researchers from South America, Europe and the U.S. has published a paper in the journal Science highlighting plant diversity in neotropical dry forests in the Americas...
View ArticleResearchers discover feedback mechanism in photosynthesis that protects...
Scientists at Imperial College London have discovered a feedback mechanism at the heart of photosynthesis that protects plants from damage by light.
View ArticleScientists uncover genetic evidence that 'we are what we eat'
Researchers at the University of Oxford have demonstrated that the diets of organisms can affect the DNA sequences of their genes.
View ArticleNatural alternatives to protect plants inspired by pharmaceutical research
The bacteria Streptomyces—which is commonly used in human antibiotics and found in the natural environments of wild plants as well as crops—could be used as an environmentally friendly alternative to...
View ArticleMicrobes rule in 'knee-high tropical rainforests'
Rainforests on infertile wet soils support more than half of all plant species. Shrublands on infertile dry soils in southwestern Australia, jokingly called "knee-high tropical rainforests", support...
View ArticleWant more crop variety? Researchers propose using CRISPR to accelerate plant...
Out of the more than 300,000 plant species in existence, only three species—rice, wheat, and maize—account for most of the plant matter that humans consume, partly because in the history of...
View ArticleThis small molecule could have a big future in global food security
Researchers at the University of Arizona have found a promising way to prevent the loss of millions of tons of crops to a fungus each year, offering the potential to dramatically improve food security,...
View ArticleSatellite imaging breakthrough improves ability to measure plant growth
Satellite images of Earth's plant life have been valuable for managing crops or detecting deforestation, but current methods are often contaminated by light reflected by other things like clouds, soil...
View ArticleNew method for tapping vast plant pharmacopeia to make more effective drugs
Cocaine, nicotine, capsaicin. These are just three familiar examples of the hundreds of thousands of small molecules (also called specialized or secondary metabolites) that plants use as chemical...
View ArticlePufferfish and humans share the same genes for teeth
Human teeth evolved from the same genes that make the bizarre beaked teeth of the pufferfish, according to new research by an international team of scientists.
View ArticleGene identified that produces protein that helps volatile chemicals be...
(Phys.org)—A team of researchers at Purdue University in the U.S. and the University of Amsterdam and Université catholique de Louvain in the Netherlands has isolated the gene responsible for producing...
View ArticleFlowers' genome duplication contributes to their spectacular diversity
Scientists at the University of Bristol have shed new light on the evolution of flowers in research published today in the Royal Society journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
View ArticleGenome sequencing shows maize adapted to highlands thousands of years ago
(Phys.org)—An international team of researchers has found evidence showing that maize evolved to survive in the U.S. southwest highlands thousands of years ago. In their paper published in the journal...
View ArticleStudy demonstrates courts' critical, underappreciated role in climate policy
Researchers at the George Washington University (GW) have identified that the number of federal and state climate lawsuits has been growing since 2006 in the most extensive study to date on the nature...
View ArticleUsing sugar molecules to make cotton material glow
(Phys.org)—A team of researchers from Germany, Israel and Austria has developed a process for imbuing cotton fibers with material that glows under fluorescent light. In their paper published in the...
View ArticleBig data helps researchers in battle to control plant invaders
Researchers at The University of Western Australia are part of an international team that has discovered why some plant species are more successful than others at successfully invading new regions.
View ArticleStudy sheds new light on how animals and plants respond to changes in the...
Scientists at the University of Sheffield have discovered that living creatures' responsiveness to changes in the environment can evolve and depends on the conditions they experienced in their past.
View ArticleBacterial biofilm cellulose found to differ from plant cellulose
A team of researchers with members from the U.S., Germany and Sweden has discovered that the cellulose found in bacterial biofilms differs from the cellulose in plants. In their paper published in the...
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