A warming Antarctic is changing how mosses have sex
Mosses are reacting to rising temperatures in the Antarctic in different ways. The tiny plants could cause big changes to the food web.
Dale Maylea
Dale Maylea was a system for adding value to press releases. Now he's a manual algorithm for blogging any papers that Alun Salt thinks are interesting. The idea being telling people about an interesting paper NOW beats telling people about an interesting paper at some time in the future, when there's time to sit down and take things slowly.
Aconitum offers bees more nectar to carry its toxic pollen
Male flowers of Aconitum protect their pollen by adding alkaloids. Without pollen as a reward, botanists asked how the flower compensated pollinators.
UV light can guide flies to an Utterly Voracious plant
Students at Augustana University have found out how insects see carnivorous plants by building on each other’s work in a series of projects.
Bacteria living within plants can change them in unpredictable ways
Endophytic bacteria, microbes living in plant tissue, can change how a plant grows. But experiments with microbe communities shows that it’s not in a predictable way.
Poisoned soils could be healed with the right kind of cress
Buck Rogers found the land around New Chicago in the 25th century was polluted and barren. But pollution might not be a long-term problem if you have the right Brassica.
Microplastic infill for artificial turfs harms grassland species
We’re used to microplastics being an environmental hazard in the oceans, but research confirms it can be a problem on land too.
A school curriculum could make New York City seem less grey and more green
Far from being an oxymoron, an educational intervention shows that urban botany can have tremendous value.
Invasive plants’ success may start with invasive pollen
To pollinate you need the right pollen, but what happens when you arrive in new territory everyone you share pollinators with has the wrong pollen?
Endangered plant stands on the shoulders of midgets
A plant’s survival in the location can depend on the microscopic life in the soil.
The parasitic plant Cuscuta sets up barriers to some minerals when infecting a host
If the parasitic plant dodder taps its host with a straw, then it’s a specialised straw than can filter out some nutrients that the plant isn’t using.
How fire may burn forests into scrubland
Forests that have coped with fires in the past may struggle to regenerate as climate change increases aridity in the Mediterranean Basin.
Adaptability is not always positive for plants tackling climate change
Becoming an early flowering plant may be a problem if your pollinators are asleep and your herbivores are not.
The best way to grow strong upright rose stems is to bend them over
Bending rose stems dramatically increases photosynthesis.
Reading the fingerprints on your nuts
Are you getting the hazelnuts you pay for? How do you know? A new technique offers an alternative to subjective tests like flavour.