How Do Seeds Save for a Rainy Day?
Timing is everything. For seeds it’s a matter of life or death.
Continue reading How Do Seeds Save for a Rainy Day?
May 30, 2022
Tagged: germination
February 15, 2022
Why would a plant that doesn’t live in a wildfire zone need to be able to smell smoke?
The ability to smell smoke is important if you’re expecting a fire – but some plants have altered how they use this sense to modify how they grow.
Continue reading Why would a plant that doesn’t live in a wildfire zone need to be able to smell smoke?
November 1, 2021
Tolerance to waterlogging in relay sown grain legume crops
How do lentil, faba bean, field pea and grass pea vary in their tolerance to waterlogging, hypoxia and anoxia?
Continue reading Tolerance to waterlogging in relay sown grain legume crops
June 10, 2021
The importance of soil seed banks to invasive plant species
Can soil seed banks contribute to the success of invasive plant species?
Continue reading The importance of soil seed banks to invasive plant species
February 18, 2021
Colder temperatures better for long-term maize seed storage
Seeds were found to vary from one accession to the next in their cold storage longevity.
Continue reading Colder temperatures better for long-term maize seed storage
November 30, 2020
Seed heteromorphism, an adaptive trait of desert plant species
What are the effects of genetic and environmental factors on seed heteromorphism and its variations?
Continue reading Seed heteromorphism, an adaptive trait of desert plant species
November 5, 2020
As a keystone clade, Miconia species support a huge variety of frugivores
Different species fruit sequentially, offering a year-round food resource.
Continue reading As a keystone clade, Miconia species support a huge variety of frugivores
April 1, 2020
How does variation in traits of Tunisian oak seeds affect survival?
Oaks are the dominant species of tree in many Mediterranean forests. However, the climate of the Mediterranean basin is predicted to change dramatically. Will the make-up of the forests change similarly? To find out, Nabil Amimi and colleagues have been examining the ecophysiology of seed persistence and germination in Tunisian oaks. There are a number of oaks in Tunisia. The authors compared Quercus canariensis, Q. coccifera, Q. ilex and Q. suber. Normally, altitude, rainfall and temperature give each oak its favoured niche. “It is well established that Q. coccifera becomes dominant under warm and arid conditions. At the opposite end...
Continue reading How does variation in traits of Tunisian oak seeds affect survival?
September 4, 2019
How do marshes migrate?
New research shows that marsh plants may be lying in wait in marshes-to-be, waiting for geological processes to catch up.
Continue reading How do marshes migrate?
August 23, 2018
Integration between developmental pathways during reserve mobilization in palm seeds
Palm seeds are interesting models for studying seed reserve mobilization at the tissue level due to the abundance and complexity of reserves stored in their living endosperm cells and the development of a highly specialized haustorium. Dias et al. studied structural and physiological aspects of the initial phases of reserve mobilization in seeds of a neotropical palm, Butia capitata, and sought to characterize the interactions between the different developmental pathways of the haustorium and endosperm. The authors performed morphological and histochemical evaluations of the haustorium, the endosperm adjacent to the embryo, and the peripheral endosperm of dry, imbibed, dormant seeds...
Continue reading Integration between developmental pathways during reserve mobilization in palm seeds
June 21, 2018
Within- and trans-generational plasticity: seed germination responses to light quantity and quality
Plants respond not only to the environment in which they find themselves, but also to that of their parents. The combination of within- and trans-generational phenotypic plasticity regulates plant development. The light environment also regulates many aspects of plant development, including seed germination. In a recent study published in AoB PLANTS, Vayda et al. investigate how seeds integrate environmental cues experienced at different times. In the study the authors quantified germination responses to changes in light quantity (irradiance) and quality (R:FR) experienced during seed maturation and seed imbibition in Arabidopsis thaliana genotypes that differ in their innate dormancy levels. The results...
Continue reading Within- and trans-generational plasticity: seed germination responses to light quantity and quality
February 21, 2018
Intra-specific facilitation promotes the recruitment of a desert shrub
In stressful environments, nurse elements, such as shrubs or rocks, facilitate plant recruitment by providing less severe environments for seed germination and seedling survival. As seedlings develop, however, they may compete for resources with their nurse when it is a plant instead of a rock. In a recent study published in AoB PLANTS, Loayza et al. examined the role of conspecific plants and rocks as nurses of an endangered Atacama-Desert shrub, Myrcianthes coquimbensis (Myrtaceae). Establishment was highest under conspecific plants, revealing that in stressful environments plants can facilitate establishment of their own species. Their study contrasts with findings from other...
Continue reading Intra-specific facilitation promotes the recruitment of a desert shrub
February 20, 2018
The autonomous flowering-time pathway pleiotropically regulates seed germination
Despite some degree of functional divergence between the regulation of flowering and germination by autonomous-pathway genes, the autonomous pathway is highly functionally conserved across life stages.
Continue reading The autonomous flowering-time pathway pleiotropically regulates seed germination
December 21, 2017
Plant records: Can a plant be too trusting?
Name: Orchids Scientific name: Family: Orchidaceae Known for: Beauty, epiphytism, providing vanilla flavouring, tiny seeds, mycorrhizae, deceptive pollination, mycoheterotrophy, medicinal usage, vegetating Krakatoa… Record broken: The world’s most trusting plant… The orchid family, the Orchidaceae, is one of the biggest flowering plant families with an estimated number of species ranging from 26,460 [Maarten Christenhusz et al., Plants of the World: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Vascular Plants; University of Chicago Press, 2017] to >27,000]. Whilst that arguably means that there can be almost 27,000 unique ways to be an orchid, this item will have to restrict itself to generalisations. In particular,...
Continue reading Plant records: Can a plant be too trusting?
Feedback