This study represents the first estimate of drought-induced xylem embolism in palms across biomes and provides the first step towards understanding hydraulic adaptations in long-lived arborescent monocots.
For young woody plants, being eaten by large mammals is a major threat and source of sapling mortality. Some species produce spines as a form of defence. How early these spines emerge may be a strong predictor of...
Carbon released from the land surface is one of the largest fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2) between the atmosphere and the Earth’s surface, with plant respiration accounting for about half of this flux. As a result...
In trees, the trade-off between leaf number and individual leaf size on current year shoots (twigs) is crucial to light interception. This relationship has consequences on leaf energy balance as well as carbon uptake at...
In oilseed rape (Brassica napus) bzh dwarf plants have improved nitrogen (N) uptake, N-utilization and N-use efficiency compared to normal types. Is this due to their shoots, or do roots play a role?
As trees photosynthesize, using carbon from the atmosphere to grow and store energy, they also lose water to the air (transpire). During a drought, continuing to photosynthesize and transpire puts trees at risk of...
Animal pollinated flowers show two types of floral symmetry, actinomorphy (radial symmetry) with several planes of symmetry or zygomorphy (bilateral symmetry) with just one symmetry plane. Although these floral types...
Strigolactones are interesting phytohormones in their own right, but Luke Omoarelojie and colleagues say we should be looking at cross-talk with other hormones too.