Celebrating Plants and People
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Botanists More Likely To Study Sexy Plants At Expense Of Plain Ones
Using a statistical model, they found that the physical appearance of a plant – its colour, the size of its flowers and the height of its stems – was the most important factor in explaining research interest amongst botanists, trumping ecological importance, rarity and abundance. (Click on title for full story)
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If You Can Make It Here… Antarctica Greenhouse Shows Promise For Space Salads
team of scientists overwintering at a remote station in Antarctica has harvested crops grown in a high-tech greenhouse designed to test technologies that could one day feed explorers on the moon and Mars. (Click on title for full story.)
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The Meteor That Doomed Dinosaurs Also Gave Rise To Modern Rain Forests
The team found no evidence of legume trees before the extinction event, but afterward there was a great diversity and abundance of legume leaves and pods. Today, legumes are a dominant family in tropical rainforests, and through associations with bacteria, take nitrogen from the air and turn it into fertilizer for the soil. The rise of legumes would have dramatically affected the nitrogen cycle. (Click on title for full story.)
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White Flies Adopt Plant Gene To Protect Themselves From Plant Toxins When Feeding
These findings reveal an evolutionary scenario whereby herbivores harness the genetic toolkit of their host plants to develop resistance to plant defenses and how this can be exploited for crop protection. (Click on title for full story.)
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The Trees That Will Let Notre Dame Cathedral Rise Again
According to the army general in charge of the reconstruction of Notre Dame, these trees were planted under King Louis XIV’s reign in order to provide wood to build the masts for ships belonging to the French navy. (Click on title for full story)
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The Arctic Was Green Once And Will Be Again
“We have this really rare view into a particular warm period in the past that was arguably the most recent time that it was warmer than present in the Arctic. That makes it a really useful analogue for what we might expect in the future, (Click on title for full story)
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Plants Alert Neighbors Of Insect Attacks: Except When Insects Disconnect The Alarm System
The fact that tomato fruitworm caterpillars evolved a salivary enzyme that inhibits emissions of defensive volatiles in certain species suggests the importance of plant airborne defenses in the evolution of insect herbivores. (Click on title for full story.)
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If You Build It Will They Come? Restoring Plant Biodiversity Doesn’t Guarantee Animal Biodiversity
“Perhaps more importantly, our study shows these active restoration techniques of introducing megaherbivores like bison, which were near extinction last century, and fire regimes that Indigenous people used to set to prairies, are absolutely critical components to recreating those complex webs of species and interactions. Seeding alone gets us started, but extra management super charges the animal communities that are critical to maintaining healthy prairies (Click on title for full story.)
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Comparing Plant I.D. Apps: Few Do Really Well
There were large differences in performance with the best apps identifying >50 % of samples tested to genus or better. (Click on title for full story)
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Could Dinosaurs Have Been Important At Dispersing Seed?
Evidence from fossils indicates that seeds consumed by dinosaurs could remain intact in their stomachs, suggesting a possible role in helping plants to spread in the prehistoric world. (Click on title for full story)