Actions aimed at reforesting arid areas around the world are becoming increasingly complex. In a recent study published in AoB PLANTS, Carevic et al. evaluated the physiological resistance to drought stress of Prosopis (mesquite) seedlings from different collection sites in the Atacama Desert, northern Chile. Their results show that seedlings from the most hyperarid habitats […]

How does the evolution of herbicide resistance relate to plant physiology? A new paper in AoB PLANTS suggests a few ways to find out.

Edible trichomes have been recorded in several plant families. However, food hairs have not been recorded among the Catasetinae, a subtribe of Orchidaceae. In a recent article published in AoB PLANTS, Pansarin and Maciel used data on floral biology to perform studies involving Cyanaeorchis, a genus for which pollinators and rewards are unknown. They also […]

Habitat variations influence the richness and composition of insect guilds. This affects plant reproduction, which depends upon functional relationships with insects involving both pollination and predation. The impact of changes in insect fauna can be seen in composite landscapes, where forest fragmentation produces transition habitats showing great heterogeneity over small spatial scales. In a recent […]

Aquatic plants can function as conduits for methane from sediment to the air, and thus contribute to the global methane balance. In a recent Editor’s Choice article published in AoB PLANTS, Milberg et al. studied the flux of methane from plots, in two Swedish lakes, dominated by two species (Phragmites australis, Carex rostrata). There were substantial […]

Extreme hypobaria represents an environment that is mostly outside of the evolutionary experience of terrestrial plants, and yet hypobaria may be a part of plant habitats in support of human space exploration. A greenhouse on the surface of Mars, as well as in transit vehicles and space habitats, can be envisioned to operate below the […]

Although many studies have documented the effects of global warming on invasive plants, little is known about whether the effects of warming on plant invasion differ depending on the imposed change in different diurnal temperature range. In a recent study published in AoB PLANTS, Chen et al. tested the impacts of unequal night-and-day warming on […]

Within a species, plant traits may vary substantially along environmental gradients. However, is such variation (1) consistent across locations and (2) genetic or non-genetic (i.e., plastic) in nature? In a recent ‘Editor’s Choice’ article published in AoB PLANTS, Pfennigwerth et al. combined field observations and a common garden experiment to assess Rhododendron maximum trait variation […]

Success in reproduction is subject to the successful initiation as well as successful completion of a chain of consecutive events starting from flower formation and ending with viable seed production. A recent article published by Raina et al. in AoB PLANTS focuses on how thigmotropic stigmas, which open, close and re-open in response to touch, […]

There is mounting evidence that we have entered the sixth mass extinction period, where species diversity is being lost at an unprecedented rate. Cycads are the most threatened plant group in the plant kingdom, and thus a recent study published in AoB PLANTS by Mankga and Yessoufou investigated the factors that correlate with the extinction […]

The characteristics of the breeding systems of woody bamboo species are not well defined, although this knowledge is important for research on the genetic improvement and conservation of bamboo forests. A recent study published in AoB PLANTS by Chen et al. is the first report on variations in the breeding systems of mass and sporadically […]

Oxalis laciniata is endemic to the Patagonia region of South America, inhabiting high mountains and steppe and even growing on the coast. In a recent study published in AoB PLANTS by López and Bonasora, the marked polymorphism in this species led the authors to test whether its genetic variability would explain both its morphological variability […]