Plant Biology

Aluminium/silicon interactions in barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) seedlings

by Martin Hodson

Some Recent Advances in Studies of Silicon in Higher Plants [and Discussion]

by Martin Hodson

The amelioration of aluminium toxicity by silicon in higher plants: Solution chemistry or an in planta mechanism?

by Martin Hodson

Aluminium/silicon interactions in conifers

by Martin Hodson

Subcellular localization of mineral deposits in the roots of wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.)

by Martin Hodson

The amelioration of aluminium toxicity by silicon in wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.): malate exudation as evidence for an in planta mechanism

by Martin Hodson

SILICON DEPOSITION AND ANATOMICAL STUDIES IN THE INFLORESCENCE BRACTS OF FOUR PHALARIS SPECIES WITH THEIR POSSIBLE RELEVANCE TO CARCINOGENESIS

by Martin Hodson

Mineral Deposition in the Needles of White Spruce [ Picea glauca (Moench.) Voss]

by Martin Hodson

The effects of aluminium and Paxillus involutus Fr. on the growth of Norway spruce [Picea abies (L.) Karst.]

by Martin Hodson

The impact of waterfowl herbivory on plant standing crop: a meta-analysis

by Kevin Wood

Wood, K.A., Stillman, R.A., Clarke, R.T., Daunt, F. & O'Hare, M.T. (2012). The impact of waterfowl herbivory on plant standing crop: a meta-analysis. Hydrobiologia, 686: 157-167.

Waterfowl can cause substantial reductions in plant standing crop, which may have ecological and economic... more Waterfowl can cause substantial reductions in plant standing crop, which may have ecological and economic consequences. However, what determines the magnitude of these reductions is not well understood. Using data from published studies, we derived the relationship between waterfowl density and reduction in plant standing crop. When waterfowl density was estimated as individuals ha−1 no significant relationship with reduction in plant standing crop was detected. However, when waterfowl density was estimated as kg ha−1 a significant, positive, linear relationship with reduction in plant standing crop was found. Whilst many previous studies have considered waterfowl species as homologous, despite large differences in body mass, our results suggest that species body mass is a key determinant of waterfowl impact on plant standing crop. To examine relative impacts of waterfowl groups based on species body mass, a measure of plant biomass reduction (R s) per bird per hectare was calculated for each group. Comparison of R s values indicated some differences in impact between different waterfowl groups, with swans having a greater per capita impact than smaller-bodied waterfowl groups. We present evidence that this difference is linked to disparities in individual body size and associated differences in intake rates, diet composition and energy requirements. Future research priorities are proposed, particularly the need for experiments that quantify the importance of factors that determine the magnitude of waterfowl impacts on plant standing crop.

Morphological trends in the fossil pollen of Decodon and the paleobiogeographic history of the genus

by Fridgeir Grimsson

2012
Fridgeir Grimsson, David K. Ferguson, Reinhard Zetter
International Journal of Plant Sciences

Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry of Seabird Guano Fertilization: Results from Growth Chamber Studies with Maize (Zea mays)

by Paul Szpak

Szpak P., F. J. Longstaffe, J.-F. Millaire, C. D. White. 2012. Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry of Seabird Guano Fertilization: Results from Growth Chamber Studies with Maize (Zea mays). PLoS One 7: e33741.

Background
Stable isotope analysis is being utilized with increasing regularity to examine a wide range of issues... more Background
Stable isotope analysis is being utilized with increasing regularity to examine a wide range of issues (diet, habitat use, migration) in ecology, geology, archaeology, and related disciplines. A crucial component to these studies is a thorough understanding of the range and causes of baseline isotopic variation, which is relatively poorly understood for nitrogen (δ15N). Animal excrement is known to impact plant δ15N values, but the effects of seabird guano have not been systematically studied from an agricultural or horticultural standpoint.


Methodology/Principal Findings
This paper presents isotopic (δ13C and δ15N) and vital data for maize (Zea mays) fertilized with Peruvian seabird guano under controlled conditions. The level of 15N enrichment in fertilized plants is very large, with δ15N values ranging between 25.5 and 44.7‰ depending on the tissue and amount of fertilizer applied; comparatively, control plant δ15N values ranged between −0.3 and 5.7‰. Intraplant and temporal variability in δ15N values were large, particularly for the guano-fertilized plants, which can be attributed to changes in the availability of guano-derived N over time, and the reliance of stored vs. absorbed N. Plant δ13C values were not significantly impacted by guano fertilization. High concentrations of seabird guano inhibited maize germination and maize growth. Moreover, high levels of seabird guano greatly impacted the N metabolism of the plants, resulting in significantly higher tissue N content, particularly in the stalk.

Conclusions/Significance
The results presented in this study demonstrate the very large impact of seabird guano on maize δ15N values. The use of seabird guano as a fertilizer can thus be traced using stable isotope analysis in food chemistry applications (certification of organic inputs). Furthermore, the fertilization of maize with seabird guano creates an isotopic signature very similar to a high-trophic level marine resource, which must be considered when interpreting isotopic data from archaeological material.

Measuring submerged macrophyte standing crop in shallow rivers: a test of methodology

by Kevin Wood

Wood, K.A., Stillman, R.A., Clarke, R.T., Daunt, F. & O'Hare, M.T. (in press). Measuring submerged macrophyte standing crop in shallow rivers: a test of methodology. Aquatic Botany

High natural variability in space and time can make accurate measurements of macrophyte standing crop difficult.... more High natural variability in space and time can make accurate measurements of macrophyte standing crop difficult. Accuracy of such measurements could be improved by quantifying the relationships between the different methods of measuring standing crop which are available to researchers. In this study we compare cover, volume, and biomass as measures of standing crop. Percentage cover, percentage volume, and dry weight biomass estimates were positively related (R2(adj) range = 54–96%), but these relationships were significantly different between sites, and to a lesser extent between months. Biomass was related (R2(adj) range = 18–73%) to stand height. Furthermore, cover, volume and biomass indicated different seasonal trends in standing crop at the two study sites. Our study presents a suite of standing crop measures that exhibit close congruence, can be measured efficiently and minimise destructive sampling in situ, attributes which will aid in the design and implementation of future macrophyte measurement protocols for shallow rivers.

The iPlant collaborative: cyberinfrastructure for plant biology

by Naim Matasci

The iPlant Collaborative (iPlant) is a United States National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project that aims to... more The iPlant Collaborative (iPlant) is a United States National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project that aims to create an innovative, comprehensive, and foundational cyberinfrastructure in support of plant biology research (PSCIC, 2006). iPlant is developing cyberinfrastructure that uniquely enables scientists throughout the diverse fields that comprise plant biology to address Grand Challenges in new ways, to stimulate and facilitate cross-disciplinary research, to promote biology and computer science research interactions, and to train the next generation of scientists on the use of cyberinfrastructure in research and education. Meeting humanity’s projected demands for agricultural and forest products and the expectation that natural ecosystems be managed sustainably will require synergies from the application of information technologies. The iPlant cyberinfrastructure design is based on an unprecedented period of research community input, and leverages developments in high-performance computing, data storage, and cyberinfrastructure for the physical sciences. iPlant is an open-source project with application programming interfaces that allow the community to extend the infrastructure to meet its needs. iPlant is sponsoring community-driven workshops addressing specific scientific questions via analysis tool integration and hypothesis testing. These workshops teach researchers how to add bioinformatics tools and/or datasets into the iPlant cyberinfrastructure enabling plant scientists to perform complex analyses on large datasets without the need to master the command-line or high-performance computational services.

A transcriptional timetable of autumn senescence

by Andreas Sjödin

The genetics and genomics of the drought response in Populus

by Andreas Sjödin

Abundantly and rarely expressed Lhc protein genes exhibit distinct regulation patterns in plants

by Andreas Sjödin

Environmental and hormonal regulation of the activity–dormancy cycle in the cambial meristem involves stage‐specific modulation of transcriptional and metabolic …

by Andreas Sjödin

Protease gene families in Populus and Arabidopsis

by Andreas Sjödin

The Populus Genome Integrative Explorer (PopGenIE): a new resource for exploring the Populus genome

by Andreas Sjödin