More plants will be ‘losers’ than ‘winners’ in the future, thanks to human activity
Fait vos jeux, but while there will be some winners, the odds are stacked against most plants doing well in the future.
Tag: domestication
Plants that have adapted to exploit human activity now depend on disturbance
Plants that have grown in partnership with human activity in meadows can be a great source of seeds for restoration projects, but their ability to germinate is also a problem.
Seminal roots help maize grab nutrients
When humans selected for bigger seeds in maize, they may have also unintentionally improved its root system.
Botanists find the molecular difference between edible pacaya and the wild palms
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
Disentangling domestication and environmental effects on plant-herbivore interactions
How has domestication affected herbivory and anti-herbivore defenses of chaya, a plant crop grown for it’s leaves in the Yucatan pensula?
The scented story of rice
Wild relatives of beans retain useful drought resistance
A new study of wild crop relatives of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) finds they retain useful adaptations to drought stress.
Larger apples have lower natural defences against pests
Botanists find a clear trade-off between fruit size and phytochemical production, helping to explain why our modern varieties are highly susceptible to diseases and pests.
The poorly known Ethiopian crop Enset
Enset, a relative of the banana, provides the staple food for around 20 million Ethiopians, yet is barely known outside of the region.
