The altitude gradient limits the growth and distribution of alpine plants. Multiple environmental stresses along the altitude gradient, including sharp temperature shifts, strong ultraviolet radiation exposure, and low oxygen content, are implicated in this phenomenon. Alpine plants have developed special strategies to survive the chilling environment in high mountains, but the mechanism un...
The problem of missing data in phylogenetic analysis is an important issue, because missing data are common in many data matrices and are only absent in many others because taxa and genes are deliberately excluded in order to avoid them. Phylogeneticists often design their studies to maximize the number of genes included but minimize the overall amount of missing data. However, few studies ...
Paraisometrum mileense W. T. Wang is the only species in the monotypic genus Paraisometrum W. T. Wang of family Gesneriaceae. It had been thought to be extinct for one hundred years, but was rediscovered by botanists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It has been given the plant species with extremely small populations because of its small remaining populations, few plant individuals, a...
Species of Taxus (yews) are reputed for the anticancer compound paclitaxel. Excessive harvesting triggered by commercial exploitation for the production of anticancer drugs and in some areas intense local use for timber and other purposes has cleared several of natural yew populations in the Himalayas and SW China. Awareness and concern have been raised for years at the local, national and inte...
Cycas simplicipinna (T. Smitinand) K. Hill., belonging to Cycas (Cycadaceae), is a rare and endangered species in China. All cycads have been given the ‘First Grade’ conservation status in China. GONG Xun’s Group, from Kunming Institute of Botany, has made many in-depth researches on conservation genetics of Cycas for recent years, and some significant contributions have also been made o...
Alternaria alternata (tobacco pathotype) is a necrotrophic fungus that infects mature tobacco leaves and causes the so called Brown-spot disease which results in severe losses in Nicotiana species.
Until now most studies about plant-pathogen interaction have either focused on the regulating roles of several phytohormone pathways such as JA, SA, ET which are commonly strongly activated after...
Pollinating seed-consuming mutualisms are regarded as exemplary models for studying coevolution, but they are extremely rare. In these systems, olfactory cues have been thought to play an important role in facilitating encounters between partners.
Prof. SUN Hang’s research team from Kunming Institute of Botany (KIB) have been working since 1990s to understand how alpine plant survive and r...
Genomic imprinting is an interesting epigenetic phenomena, results in parent-of-origin specific differential expression of maternally and paternally inherited alleles. In plants, the triploid endosperm is where gene imprinting occurs most often, but aside from studies on Arabidopsis, little is known about gene imprinting in dicotyledons.
Dr. LIU Aizhong’s research team from Kunming Institu...
Why does floral deception evolve? It is one of most challenging questions for evolutionary biologists. Floral deception has evolved in at least 7500 species of angiosperms, of which two thirds are orchids. Although Charles Darwin distrusted floral deception in orchids, pollination-by-deceit appears to be dominant by many lineages in Orchidaceae. Epipactis veratrifolia (Orchidaceae) is a model s...
