What is it that causes a virus to replicate? A team studying Coccolithovirus in algae found light was a crucial element in reproduction.
Continue reading Virus gives light a dark side
Whilst members of the Plant Kingdom might dominate terrestrial biomes, non-Plant Kingdom members are the major photosynthetic organisms in aquatic habitats
Continue reading Spotlight on macronutrients : Carbon (mainly)
Whilst forests – aided and abetted by cryptogams (see my previous post) – have a major role as biotic carbon sinks on land, in the oceans that role is largely down to the activity of cryptogamous phytoplankton, which ‘draw-down’ vast amounts of CO2 during photosynthesis. However – and unlike trees – much of that aquatic primary productivity is consumed by herbivores, which in turn are preyed upon by various levels of carnivores. Ultimately, a lot of the CO2 that is fixed is released quite soon thereafter in respiration. Which is why attempts to consign such fixed carbon that is retained...
Continue reading That sinking feeling…June 16th is the date upon which certain individuals around the world celebrate Irish writer James Joyce’s 1904-set literary classic Ulysses. Termed Bloom’s Day – after Leopold Bloom, the famously impenetrable novel’s main character, whose Dublin comings-and-goings are minutely catalogued over a 24-hour period – this is only a day-long phenomenon. A recently discovered bloom of another – phytoplankton – kind, and which lasts far longer than one day, is reported by Kevin Arrigo et al. But such blooms – a ‘rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae… in an aquatic system’ – are common enough, and the well-documented,...
Continue reading Rejoice, ‘tis the real Bloom’s Day (to be sure…)Botany One is a blog run by the Annals of Botany Company, a non-profit educational charity.
In addition to Botany One, the company currently publishes three journals, the Annals of Botany, AoB PLANTS, and in silico Plants.
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