Plants most often live side-by-side with other plants. Neighbours compete locally with one another for light, water and soil nutrients. An individual plant may find itself alongside members of other species, “strangers”...
Author - Cathy Shields
Cathy Shields
When the going gets tough….. the organelles get going
Chloroplasts, the tiny photosynthetic energy factories of plant cells, were observed to move in response to light and temperature as long as a century ago. Within a cell, these organelles can migrate towards the cell...
Dead End Street: Is self-fertilisation the end of the road for flowering plants?
One of the basic and most widely accepted hypotheses in plant breeding systems is that flowering plant species that embrace self-fertilisation enter an evolutionary “dead end”, and are destined for extinction. The...
Fungal symbiont choosiness from the nutrient “menu” influences orchids’ distribution and rarity
Orchids may be found everywhere, but which orchid is found where depends on the tastes of their partners.
Succulent plants of Africa and America: Do these lookalikes live alike?
There are numerous examples in nature of distantly-related organisms converging on similar shapes that have proved useful to each. This convergent evolution can generate strikingly similar but independently evolved...
Gender inequality (in plant populations). What causes unequal numbers of males and females?
Populations of dioecious flowering plants (which have male and female individuals) often depart from the expected male:female ratio of 1:1. The causes of skewed sex ratios are complex and still poorly understood. As...
