The variation in genome size between different plant species is enormous, with a variation of 2300-fold in flowering plants alone. Whilst variation in plant genome size is well recorded, it is debatable how much of this...
Author - Liam Elliott
Liam Elliott
Even plants want it to snow! The effects of cold stress on plant communities and how snow may offset these
Snow may not necessarily be a bad thing for plants
Seeing red isn’t the same everywhere! How and why red flowers differ between locations.
The precise colouration of red flowers differs according to where they are and what they interact with.
It’s epigenetics after all! How environmentally-induced traits might support plant ecosystems
Diversity of parental environments could have comparable effects to genetic diversity in Arabidopsis.
Life in the canopy is different : How genetics impacts variation in herbivory on oak trees
Trees may invest more in protecting their canopy leaves from munching insects than their other leaves
To C4 or not to C4 if you’re a tree? Some possible answers
C4 photosynthesis is an efficient way of harnessing energy, yet trees rarely use it. Why is that?
How to eat bugs without really trying? Insights from the genomes of carnivorous plants
Genes for carnivory arose from a duplication of the genome turning plants into hunters.
How do some plants become flammable? Insights from Dracophyllum
Why would a plant not frequently exposed to fire evolve to burn well?
The mystery element: building a variable plant cuticle
Cutan must play a role in plant cuticles, but it's not clear how much cutan a cuticle contains.
Success the hard way: iron-dependent cell death in a rice pathogen
While the term cell death may at first thought give connotations of an undesirable process, it is actually well known that cell death is an important part of the growth and development of many organisms, including in...
‘Out of Iberia’: How Bristol rock cress got to where it is today
Is a population of rare cress found near Bristol, UK, a remnant of an ice age population, or is it part of a wider European population that survived in refugia somewhere?
‘Two households, both alike …’? How differences between sexes varies with time in flowering plants
‘Two households, both alike in dignity’ is famously the opening line of Romeo & Juliet. How alike houses Montague and Capulet actually are is debatable, but what is clear is that plants with two households can be...
Bloody plants! How soybean uses haemoglobins to obtain nitrogen
Excess nitrogen significantly accelerated nodule senescence and the production of green leghaemoglobin in nodules.
Job-sharing by the barley cuticle
In addition to preventing water loss, plant cuticles must also regulate nutrient loss, leaching. The eceriferum mutants in Hordeum vulgare (barley) potentially influence these functions by altering epicuticular wax...
