Plants, if only hearing this word makes your heart beat quicker, then you have come the right place. While many view them as just decorations. You know they can be so much more than we give them credit to. They are essential for us. They give us the oxygen we breathe and the food we eat. But did you know plants can do calculus? That they can detect nutrients, and grow actively towards them? That they use insects, not only for pollinating their flowers, but also as defence against other insects? On this plant science blog, I discuss the latest findings about plants.
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Latest Blogs
Parasite plants give their development a headstart
For their nutrients are parasitic plants dependent on their host plant. Logically they make sure to time their germination accordingly. Up till now the assumption was that parasitic plants only develop an haustorium when they perceive specific haustorium inducing signals from their host. Now a new study shows that that is not the whole story.
Keep readingTwisting stems and the golden rule
Most plants orient their leaves around their stem according to the principle of the golden rule. This comes down to that every subsequent leaf is oriented at an angle of about 137.5 degrees compared to its predecessor. Now researchers found out how the plant does this.
Keep readingSeason dependent growth pause
Trees and other perennial plants stop growing each year when it gets colder. A strategy that helps then to survive the cold winter. But how plants are regulating this is not completely known. A group of Swedish and Chinese researchers found this out for poplars.
Keep readingA waxy layer for salt tolerance
Most plants don’t like to much salt. Still, there are plants that flourish under salty conditions. Not surprisingly researchers are curious how plants adapted that don’t stress out over an extra pinch of salt.
Keep readingInterrupting virus replication
Just like us humans, plants are also infected by viruses. These can cause lost of damage. Therefore, researchers like to know how these viruses work, so they can stop them where possible.
Keep readingPitcher plant not a strict predator after all
Nature documentaries make us believe that pitcher plants are highly skilled at trapping insects. In reality, a pitcher plant success rate is not that high, about 2%. This made scientist wonder if pitcher plants are really the predators we believe them to be.
Keep readingAttract and repel
About the effect of the composition of those scents researchers know relatively little. Do plants with a more divers scent bouquet also attract more pollinators? And what about its effect on bacteria?
Keep readingDomesticated vs wild plants – the microbe edition
For the plant attraction of microbes is often useful. Therefore, the question was raised about how domestication and breeding influenced the attraction of microbes. A new study found out.
Keep readingHow soybeans get the most out of offered help
A symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi helps plants during nutrient shortages. But in legumes this is slightly different regulated. A new study analysing this finds that once the symbioses is initiated the plant actively recruits more microbes that help.
Keep readingThe influence of CO2 on acorns
Plants grow better if they receive more CO2, aren’t they? In first instance this appears to be the case. Plants get bigger and are also producing more and bigger seeds. But if that is good news for everyone, that is something that remains to be seen.
Keep readingParasite organ formation
Parasitic plants need another plant to survive. With an organ called an haustorium they latch on their host plant to siphon away its nutrients. Now a new study shines some light on how the development of an haustorium is regulated.
Keep readingPotential for regeneration
For a long time, the question was if all plant cells could develop into embryo’s or that only specific cells can do that. Now a group of international researchers show in their latest article that only specific cells have this possibility to develop into embryo’s.
Keep readingFinding an entry point
Plants are pretty good at halting entrance to unwanted pathogens. Pathogens do, however, still find a way in. The authors of a new study set out to find out how the fire blight bacteria finds its way in.
Keep readingAttracting useful bacteria
Plants that grow in challenging environments, like limited nutrients, often attract microbes that can help them. Now researchers show that by increasing the signals that attract helpful microbes plants can grow better in challenging environments.
Keep readingA less penetrable skin
Sap-sucking insects like white flies and aphids are a disaster for plants. Not so much for their sap sucking but for giving plants bacteria and viruses. As such plant like to make it difficult for those insects. For example, by having a sturdier wax layer, like Chinese researchers found in a new study.
Keep readingDelayed circadian clock in lettuce
There is a long-standing selection for leavy crops who flower later in the season. Now a new study “Breeding for delayed bolting decelerated the circadian clock in cultivated lettuce” shows that this has also made the circadian clock run slow.
Keep readingHijacking flower genes to make galls
You have likely come across them, galls, deformities on leaves or stems. The larvae of various insects induce galls, varying from simple tissue deformities to complex structures. A new paper shows how the larvae inside hijack the plant genes to make those structures.
Keep readingDigesting your prey
Venus flytraps are one of the speediest plants around. But have you ever wondered what happens after a fly or cricket is trapped between those two big trap-leaves? This new study called “Venus flytraps’ metabolome analysis discloses the metabolic fate of prey animal foodstock” shows what happens next.
Keep readingRegulation from a distance
Plant genomes in contrast to animal genomes don’t contain regulatory elements, or so was I led to believe. Now a new study “Two deeply conserved non-coding sequences control PLETHORA1/2 expression and coordinate embryo and root development” shows that plants also have those gene regulatory elements.
Keep readingHow plants make aspirin
In 2001 the starting point for a brassica specific pathway for salicylic acid production was found. Now not one but three research groups out of China, with some collaboration with US and Canadian researchers, found out how the rest of the plants make salicylic acid.
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