Crop wild relatives are important genetic resources for crop improvement, but they can also be candidates for crop domestication. Zizania latifolia is a perennial aquatic grass which was domesticated as a vegetable crop in China over 1000 years ago but it is currently unestablished as a grain crop. As a close relative to the American wild rice […]

Climatic seasonality drives ecosystem processes and influences plant species distribution. However, there is little understanding how different aspects of seasonality (in particular temperature and precipitation) affect growth continuity of trees in climates with low seasonality because seasonality is often only crudely measured. This is particularly true for oceanic islands, where the density of climate stations […]

Europe has a long history of human use of grassland ecosystems as hay meadows, yet these ecosystems have very high biodiversity. These ecosystems have recently become threatened by changing land use patterns and agricultural intensification, and are now considered a priority for global conservation efforts. The relationship between plants and their animal pollinators can be […]

The role of environmental factors in driving phenotypic trait variation among populations is a central focus in ecology and evolutionary biology. Such phenotypic variation includes variation in plant breeding systems, which are remarkably diverse, yet few studies have investigated how abiotic factors correlate to variation in plant breeding systems across broad geographic ranges. Triodanis perfoliata is […]

Reproductive isolation is generally regarded as the essence of the speciation process. The evolution of reproductive isolation allows differentiation and permits local adaptations to become fixed in diverging populations. Studying closely related species is convenient for understanding the genetic basis of this process. With this in mind, Nadir et al. restricted their subject species to […]

Cotton leaf curl virus (CLCuV) is one of the major limiting factors in cotton production systems worldwide. The widely cultivated cotton species, Gossypium hirsutum, is particularly sensitive to attack by this virus. The main symptom of infection is, as the name suggests, curling of the leaves resulting in stunted growth and can reduce flowering, cotton […]

Comparing plants of the same species thriving in flooded and non-flooded ecosystems can help to clarify the interplay between natural selection, plant plasticity and stress adaptation. Genipa americana L. (Rubiaceae) and Guazuma ulmifolia Lam. (Malvaceae) are two tree species widely distributed throughout the neotropical region of Brazil and are known to tolerate long periods of flooding. Both […]

Identifying Quaternary glacial refugia has been a major focus of biogeographical research efforts over the last century. The concept of refugia presumes a contraction in species range to a particular geographic area along with a reduction in its abundance due to unfavourable environmental conditions. The Balkan Peninsula represents one of the three southern European glacial […]

Pleasant or not, the fragrance of a flower typically serves as a sensory cue for pollinators, often indicative of some kind of reward, notably nectar. Floral scents are produced by specialised structures commonly referred to as osmophores, which are located mainly on petals and other floral organs. Flowers of Anacardiaceae and other Sapindales typically produce […]

Recent work on the green alga Haematococcus lacustris uncovered the largest plastid genome on record: a whopping 1.35 Mb (with >90% non-coding DNA). In a recent review published in AoBP, David R. Smith takes a closer look at this gigantic plastome, comparing it to other large organelle DNAs. David first came across the H. lacustris chloroplast genome […]

Hypocotyl elongation of Arabidopsis seedlings is influenced by light and numerous growth factors. Light inhibits hypocotyl elongation (photomorphogenesis), whereas elongation is promoted in the dark (skotomorphogenesis). Abscisic acid (ABA) plays a major role in these processes, but the molecular mechanism remains unclear. In a recent Short Communication article in AoBP, Lorrai et al. provide a molecular framework […]

Light is the original source of energy for plant photosynthesis and growth, but it also acts as a signal for morphogenesis and many other physiological processes. Different characteristics of light (spectral composition, intensity, duration and direction) can influence plant growth and development, and although photosynthesis is by definition a light-dependent process; it is negatively influenced […]