Can apomixis explain the distribution of Hanguana individuals in Singapore?
Category - Taxonomy & Evolution
William Salter
Settling the debate: Plum ‘yews’ are in a separate family to yews
New genomic study assembled the plastid genomes of plum yews to understand their evolution.
Juniper Kiss
Spreading the risk over time – Dormancy in trimorphic achenes of a cold desert annual
Do variations in dormancy and germination across achenes from peripheral, intermediate and central positions contribute to the success of the cold desert annual Heteracia szovitsii?
The molecular evolution of vitamin C biosynthesis in plants
What are the molecular evolutionary patterns of the GDP-L-galactose phosphorylase gene in plants?
Fossil eucalypt species older and more broadly distributed than previously thought
This is the first confirmed finding of Myrtaceidites eucalyptoides outside Australia.
Erin Zimmerman
Flowering time likely an important driver of speciation in South African Restionaceae
Allochrony is one of few ways for wind-pollinated species to achieve reproductive isolation.
Tree root identification saves ancient caves and the forest above them
Barcoding and morphology combined allowed identification and targeted removal of problem trees.
Small herbaria make outsize contributions
Small herbarium specimens are likely to be unduplicated elsewhere, or found only in other small herbaria.
Pollinators drive floral evolution in an Atlantic Forest genus
Can we use floral traits to accurately predict hummingbird and bat pollinators of the bromeliad genus Vriesea?
A new assessment of Madagascar’s Coffea species shows which traits reflect phylogenetic signal
Flowering phenology appears to have a strong genetic component, and may serve as a barrier to hybridization
Lessons from Mediterranean olive domestication: keep wild relatives close by and do not “overselect”
New study in the journal BMC Biology found that Mediterranean olives have almost as high genetic diversity as olive cultivars
Flowering plants spelled the end of gymnosperm dominance
Coupled with the negative effects of global cooling, angiosperms pushed gymnosperm extinction past the point of recovery.
Polyploid plants take a leaf out from the invasive species book
The extent to which propagule pressure limits the establishment of local polyploid populations remains to be determined, because we know so little.
State of the World’s Plant & Fungi Collections (Part One)
Plant and fungal collections are seeing new and innovative uses, as well as reaching a broader user-base as digitized specimens, but significant gaps remain.
