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The Gora mountains of north-eastern Albania are home to the culturally distinct Gorani and Albanian peoples. Comparison of each's local plant knowledge shows how culture has moulded their use of the environment to alleviate food insecurity.
By genetic studies the authors report a gene, Ppd-1, which controls paired spikelet development in wheat by regulating the expression of FT. Modulating the expression of Ppd-1 and FT can be used to improve grain-producing spikelets in wheat.
Asymmetric cell divisions establish the patterning of stomata in maize. Here it is demonstrated that the SCAR/WAVE complex and actin networks are involved in the early polarity establishment of PAN's receptor-like kinases in mother cells before division.
Chloroplasts of the moss Physcomitrella patens have two types of supercomplex containing light harvesting complexes and photosystem I. One is like those in green algae due to acquisition of the algal protein Lhcb9 by horizontal gene transfer.
Africa south of the Sahara is going through a major agricultural transformation. Low crop productivity, hunger and pessimism are being replaced by a rapid rise in food production, an increasingly vibrant agricultural value chain and convergence towards a common goal.
For more than a decade political stalemate has enforced a de facto ban on the exploitation of genetic modification technologies by European agriculture. It is to be hoped that a recent compromise by the European Parliament will allow reasoned decision-making to proceed.
Genome editing opens up opportunities for the precise and rapid alteration of crops to boost yields, protect against pests and diseases and enhance nutrient content. The extent to which applied plant research and crop breeding benefit will depend on how the EU decides to regulate this fledgling technology.
A 180-year-old ‘law’ in zoology has found its best support so far in a study of floral colour, which not only documents darker plants growing closer to the equator, but also supports the idea that the colour stems from ultraviolet protection.
Sequencing ancient DNA from archaeological samples reveals both how maize was transported through North America, and the shifting genomic patterns in response to selection for drought tolerance and sugar content.
Rubisco catalyses the first step in photosynthetic carbon fixation, but it can be easily poisoned by side-products of its activity. Structural and functional analyses of a protein conserved across plants, algae and bacteria shows how one such blockage is both removed and recycled.
Ascorbate is synthesized in mitochondria but needed in chloroplasts. Identification of a transporter bridging the chloroplast envelope membranes that separate cell cytoplasm from chloroplast stroma reveals a connection between ascorbate transport and cellular redox homeostasis.
Rubisco catalyses the conversion of atmospheric CO2 to organic compounds in photosynthetic organisms. Biochemical and structural analyses suggest that a selective sugar phosphatase found in plants and algae degrades a potent Rubisco inhibitor.
Plants perceive UVB from sunlight. For this, Arabidopsis thaliana use the receptor UVR8. Dynamic crystallography reveals early signalling structural events and intermediates between the homodimeric (inactive) and monomeric (active) states of UVR8.