plant

A tiny pilot study found that so-called chameleon vines mimicked plastic leaves, but experts say poor study design and conflicts of interest undermine the report.

Silverthorne shaped the development of many NSF programs driving innovation in plant biology and agriculture. 

Sequences for the model organism and two of its kin reveal how these plants got their oversized genomes.

Tortoise leaf beetles enjoy the protection the fungus provides from insect predators such as ants, then carry the microbe to a mutual plant host, which their fungal symbiont infects.

While the higher temperatures and CO₂ levels associated with climate change currently fuel plant productivity, a study finds that changing conditions could take a toll on photosynthesis rates in regions outside the Arctic within a decade.

The growing season on the tundra is starting earlier as the planet warms, but the plants aren’t sequestering more carbon, a new study finds.

A seagrass relies on symbiotic bacteria inside its roots to fix nitrogen. This is the first time scientists have demonstrated that this relationship occurs in a marine plant.

Researchers can now explain how some marine plants obtain their nitrogen.

Scientists warn that climate change–induced early flowering could have negative effects on wildlife, agriculture, and gardening.

A look back at some of the articles we most enjoyed reading, writing, and editing this year

TMAO appears to both stabilize other plant proteins and influence the expression of stress-response genes, researchers report.

Whether the galls that aphids make on witch hazel leaves are red or green is associated with a gene expressed in the insects’ salivary glands.

Cultivating stenophylla, untapped by the coffee industry for the last century, could help farmers cope with the effects of climate change, researchers suggest.

Plant species officially reported to be lost are in fact persevering in the wild, in seed banks or botanical gardens, or as other species now recognized to be taxonomic synonyms.

Researchers found that thinning petunia cells’ cuticles caused them to slow production of volatile organic compounds.

The University of California, Davis, professor is a pioneer in teasing apart the changes in gene expression that drive root development.

Their relocation explains horizontal genome transfer first described more than a decade ago.

Researchers disentangle complex connections among vegetation, herbivores, and dung in the South African savanna.

In South Africa, the composition of droppings varies by species’ body sizes, and which animals are found where depends on vegetation density.