Impact of warming and drought on carbon balance related to wood formation in black spruce Wood formation in trees represents a carbon sink that can be modified in the case of stress. The way carbon metabolism constrains growth during stress periods (high temperature and water deficit) is now under debate. In this study, the amounts […]

This week guest author Charlie Haynes is AoB Blog’s roving reporter at the EPSO/FESPB plant biology Europe conference.   Hans Lambers is the Winthrop Professor at the University of Western Australia. He competed his PhD in 1979 at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and since then worked at Melbourne University, Australian National University […]

This week guest author Charlie Haynes is AoB Blog’s roving reporter at the EPSO/FESPB plant biology Europe conference. This post is his pre-conference manifesto.   On the first day of the EPSO/FESPB plant biology Europe conference it’s worth considering why botany is important. Like many others whilst studying GCSE and A Level biology I found […]

Holoparasitic Rafflesiaceae possess the most reduced endophytes and yet give rise to the world’s largest flowers Species in the parasitic plant family Rafflesiaceae exhibit one of the most highly modified vegetative bodies in flowering plants. Apart from the flower shoot and associated bracts, the parasite is a mycelium-like endophyte living inside their grapevine hosts. This […]

The latest articles from Annals of Botany this week.

The actions of humans have exacerbated the threats posed by climate change. Adverse environmental conditions such as drought and pathogen attack limit vigour and crop yield. Environmental biotic and abiotic stresses perturb cellular redox homeostasis by enhancing the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and nitric oxide (NO), leading to post-translational modifications to proteins including […]

Lots of groundbreaking new science in Annals of Botany this week.

Omics and asymmetric cell divisions in Arabidopsis, stomatal density and CO2 concentration and nitrogen fixation in carnivorous plants.

Highlights this week in Annals of Botany.

Programmed cell death in kiwifruit stigmatic arms and its relationship to the effective pollination period and the progamic phase Kiwifruit is a crop with a highly successful reproductive performance, which is impaired by the short effective pollination period of female flowers. This study investigates whether the degenerative processes observed in both pollinated and non-pollinated flowers […]

Analysis of variation for apomictic reproduction in diploid Paspalum rufum The diploid cytotype of Paspalum rufum (Poaceae) reproduces sexually and is self-sterile; however, recurrent autopolyploidization through 2n + n fertilization and the ability for reproduction via apomixis have been documented in one genotype of the species. The objectives of this work were to analyse the […]