Pity the tobacco hornworm caterpillar, which appears to have been outsmarted by its favourite food. Every time it feasts on tobacco leaves, it inadvertently converts molecules released by the plant into chemicals that call in the predatory big-eyed bug. A feasting tobacco hornworm caterpillar may be sealing its own death warrant (Image: Design Pics Inc/Rex [...]
A snapshot of Earth's plant productivity in 2003 shows regions of increased productivity (green) and decreased productivity (red). Tracking productivity between 2000 and 2009, researchers found a global net decrease due to regional drought. (Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio) ScienceDaily (Aug. 21, 2010) — Global plant productivity that once was on [...]
This is a fluorescence microscopy image of a normal, "wild-type" (left) and a mutant (right) cell in which the vacuole membrane is marked in green. Comparing wild-type Arabidopsis thaliana to a mutant, researchers at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen were able to show for the first time that formation of functional vacuoles depends on a specific [...]
Pity the birds and the bees: disease, climate change and the human urge to pillage our environment mean they are in decline around the world. When bees disappear, the monkey flower resorts to self-pollination (Image: Stephen Dalton/NHPAP) So what about the plants that rely on them to spread their seed? A rare "live" study looking [...]
The hunt for lucky charms could be about to get a whole lot easier. A gene that controls whether clover develops into the common variety with three leaves or the sought-after four-leaf type has been identified. t's got the lucky gene (Image: Tohoku Color Agency/Getty) One four-leaved white clover (Trifolium repens) grows for every 10,000 [...]
WSU entomologist David Crowder looked at insect pests and their natural enemies in potatoes and found organic crops had more balanced insect populations in which no one species of insect has a chance to dominate. (Credit: Shelly Hanks, Washington State University) ScienceDaily (June 30, 2010) — There really is a balance of nature, but as [...]
Soybean plants growing in high carbon dioxide environments have denser canopies that can result in more disease problems. This seedling is showing signs of brown spot on its lower leaves. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences) ScienceDaily (June 26, 2010) — Human-driven changes in the earth's atmospheric [...]
Plants have the ability to integrate information about the location of both food and competitors. As a result, plants demonstrate unique behavioral strategies to capture soil resources. (Credit: Copyright Michele Hogan) ScienceDaily (June 25, 2010) — A University of Alberta research team has discovered that a plant's strategy to capture nutrients in the soil is [...]
Throughout their growth cycle, plants sprout all kinds of intricate and complex structures that range from scarcely apparent to invisible in the seedling stage. Leaves, flowers and seeds can appear, seemingly de novo, from a smooth stem or branch. But the details of how cellular development occurs—why one cell might give rise to petal cells [...]
A scientist based at the UK's Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has prevented the world's smallest waterlily from becoming extinct. The waterlilly was native to the hot springs of Rwanda. Carlos Magdalena now plans to repopulate the plant in its native home in the hot springs of Rwanda. The world's biggest species of waterlily can have [...]
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