Water stress is known to cause xylem cavitation in the leaves, roots and stems of plants, but little is known about the vulnerability of flowers to xylem damage during drought and the supply and maintenance of water in flowers. This is an important gap in our understanding of how and when plants become damaged by water stress.
The cypress family, Cupressaceae, contains about 140 species in 32 genera with worldwide distribution. Recent molecular phylogenetic studies have divided this family into seven subfamilies. Cupressoideae, the largest subfamily of Cupressaceae, contains about 100 species in 13 genera. Species of Cupressoideae are important in the Northern Hemisphere forest, and many are constructive and dominant...
Maturation drying is a pivotal step during seed development in many plant species. Once dry, and after dispersal from the parent plant, the seeds enter a relatively quiescent state. Favourable environmental conditions thereafter facilitate germination. Prolonging seed lifespan by drying has also enabled humans to conserve genetic resources and provide high-quality planting material for the futu...
Species of the Pleurotus ostreatus complex (the oyster mushrooms) are one of the main groups of cultivated edible mushrooms in China. Due to phenotypic plasticity and morphological stasis, the species delimitation of the complex is often difficult and controversial.
Nowdays, humans are producing ever greater amounts of plastic – much of which ends up as garbage. What’s more, because plastic does not break down in the same way as other organic materials, it can persist in the environment over extremely long periods of time. Scientists have recently identified a fungus which could help deal with our waste problem by using enzymes to rapidly break down plas...
The late Miocene is a sub-epoch when hominoids became rare worldwide but managed to survive in a few refugia. Investigating the living conditions of the late Miocene hominoids is therefore crucial for a better understanding of how they survived in those refugia.
The historical biogeography of the Northern Hemisphere has attracted the attention of botanists and biogeographers. A striking feature of the geographical distribution of plants in this hemisphere is the existence of closely related taxa that are disjunctly distributed in eastern Asia, Europe, and North America.
Many plant species or genera living in the temperate forests of East Asia now have fragmented distributions closely linked to past climate oscillation. Repeated forest fragmentation can not only lead to allopatric divergence of species, but also give rise to speciation. Many biological factors, such as hybridization and polyploidization are also considered playan important role in these speciat...
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), from the phylum of Glomeromycotais, is the most common mycorrhizal association between soil fungi and terrestrial plants, with about 75% of plants forming mycorrhizal symbioses with AMF.
