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Categories: Biology: Botany, Mathematics: Statistics
Published Pollinator's death trap turns into nursery
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source In a group of plants that is famous for luring its pollinators into a death trap, one species offers its flowers as a nursery in exchange. The discovery blurs the line between mutualism and parasitism and sheds light on the evolution of complex plant-insect interactions.
Published Reforestation programs could threaten vast area of tropical grasslands
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source New research reveals the scale of inappropriate reforestation projects across Africa. A new study reveals that an area the size of France is threatened by forest restoration initiatives, such as the AFR100 initiative (African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative), due to inappropriate restoration in the form of tree-planting.
Published Researchers shed light on river resiliency to flooding
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers have completed one of the most extensive river resilience studies, examining how river ecosystems recover following floods. They developed a novel modeling approach that used data from oxygen sensors placed in rivers to estimate daily growth in aquatic plants and algae. The researchers then modeled the algal and plant biomass in 143 rivers across the contiguous U.S. to quantify what magnitude of flooding disturbs the biomass and how long the rivers take to recover from floods. Increased understanding of rivers' resiliency is important to maintaining healthy rivers, as human actions can affect flood regimes and change the conditions in rivers for other aquatic life that may rely on algae and plants as a food source.
Published Asexual propagation of crop plants gets closer
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source When the female gametes in plants become fertilized, a signal from the sperm activates cell division, leading to the formation of new plant seeds. This activation can also be deliberately triggered without fertilization, as researchers have shown. Their findings open up new avenues for the asexual propagation of crop plants.
Published Root microbes may be the secret to a better tasting cup of tea
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source You'd think the complex flavor in a quality cup of tea would depend mainly on the tea varieties used to make it. But a new study shows that the making of a delicious cup of tea depends on another key ingredient: the collection of microbes found on tea roots. By altering that assemblage, the authors showed that they could make good-quality tea even better.
Published Scientists are unravelling the secrets of red and grey squirrel competition
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers have identified significant differences between the diversity of gut bacteria in grey squirrels compared to red squirrels which could hold the key to further understanding the ability of grey squirrels to outcompete red squirrels in the UK.
Published Researchers uncover mechanisms behind enigmatic shapes of nuclei
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source White blood cells known as neutrophils feature a nucleus that is structured strikingly different than most nuclei. These unique shapes permit neutrophils to travel all over the body to combat invading pathogens. Scientists have now deciphered the shapeshifting puzzle of the neutrophil nucleus.
Published Pesticides to help protect seeds can adversely affect earthworms' health
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source While pesticides protect crops from hungry animals, pesky insects, or even microbial infections, they also impact other vital organisms, including bees and earthworms. And today, research reveals that worms are affected by the relatively small amounts of chemicals that can leach out of pesticide-treated seeds. Exposure to nonlethal amounts of these insecticides and fungicides resulted in poor weight gain and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) damage in the worms.
Published Controlling root growth direction could help save crops and mitigate climate change
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists have determined how the well-known plant hormone ethylene is crucial in controlling the angle at which roots grow. The findings can be used to engineer plants and crops that withstand the environmental stresses of climate change and drought, and perhaps to create plants that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it deep underground to help mitigate climate change.
Published Researchers uncover a key link in legume plant-bacteria symbiosis
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers have unveiled a groundbreaking discovery shedding light on the intricate play between legume plants and nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Their study details the crucial role played by phosphorylation in driving the formation of symbiotic organs, known as nodules, on plant roots. The long-term goal is to enable symbiosis in root nodules in important crops such as barley, maize and rice to avoid the use of chemical fertilizers.
Published Researchers show classical computers can keep up with, and surpass, their quantum counterparts
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A team of scientists has devised means for classical computing to mimic a quantum computing with far fewer resources than previously thought. The scientists' results show that classical computing can be reconfigured to perform faster and more accurate calculations than state-of-the-art quantum computers.
Published Foul fumes pose pollinator problems
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists have discovered that nighttime air pollution -- coming primarily form car exhaust and power plant emissions -- is responsible for a major drop in nighttime pollinator activity. Nitrate radicals (NO3) in the air degrade the scent chemicals released by a common wildflower, drastically reducing the scent-based cues that its chief pollinators rely on to locate the flower. The findings show how nighttime pollution creates a chain of chemical reactions that degrades scent cues, leaving flowers undetectable by smell. The researchers also determined that pollution likely has worldwide impacts on pollination.
Published Friend or foe? Ancient partnership between moss and fungi
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers have shed new light on the ancient relationship between moss and fungi. They discovered that intricate moss-fungi interactions often depended on a third variable -- the presence of endobacteria within the fungi themselves.
Published Inexpensive, carbon-neutral biofuels are finally possible
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source When it comes to making fuel from plants, the first step has always been the hardest -- breaking down the plant matter. A new study finds that introducing a simple, renewable chemical to the pretreatment step can finally make next-generation biofuel production both cost-effective and carbon neutral.
Published Researchers discover key to molecular mystery of how plants respond to changing conditions
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A team of researchers recently published a pioneering study that answers a central question in biology: how do organisms rally a wide range of cellular processes when they encounter a change -- either internally or in the external environment -- to thrive in good times or survive the bad times? The research, focused on plants, identifies the interactions between four compounds: pectin, receptor proteins FERONIA and LLG1 and the signal RALF peptide.
Published How plants obtain nitrogen by supplying iron to symbiotic bacteria
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers have discovered peptide factors that function in the shoot and root systems to transport iron into the root nodules colonized by nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Moreover, these peptide factors regulate nitrogen homeostasis by maintaining a balance between nitrogen and iron concentrations in plants without rhizobial symbiosis.
Published Two new freshwater fungi species in China enhance biodiversity knowledge
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers have discovered two new freshwater hyphomycete (mould) species, Acrogenospora alangii and Conioscypha yunnanensis, in southwestern China. The discovery marks the addition of these species to the Acrogenospora and Conioscypha genera, further enriching the diversity of freshwater fungi known in the region.
Published Vitamin B12 adaptability in Antarctic algae has implications for climate change, life in the Southern Ocean
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The algae P. antarctica has two forms of the enzyme that makes the amino acid methionine, one needing B12, and one that is slower, but doesn't need it. This means it has the ability to adapt and survive with low B12 availability. The presence of the MetE gene in P. antarctica gives the algae the ability to adapt to lower vitamin B12 availability, giving it a potential advantage to bloom in the early austral spring when bacterial production is low. P. antarctica takes in the CO2 and releases oxygen through photosynthesis. Understanding its ability to grow in environments with low vitamin B12 availability can help climate modelers make more accurate predictions.
Published Scammed! Animals 'led by the nose' to leave plants alone
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Fake news works for wallabies and elephants. Herbivores can cause substantial damage to crops or endangered or protected plants, with traditional methods to deter foraging lethal, expensive or ineffective. Biologists are now using aromas from plants naturally repellent with remarkable success to deter the animals.
Published Rare 3D fossils show that some early trees had forms unlike any you've ever seen
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source In the fossil record, trees typically are preserved with only their trunks. They don't usually include any leaves to show what their canopies and overall forms may have looked like. In a new study, researchers describe fossilized trees from New Brunswick, Canada with a surprising and unique three-dimensional crown shape.