Insect predation sheds light on food web recovery after the dinosaur extinction
...insect-feeding damage on 14,999 fossil leaves from flowering plants found at 14 sites, 4 from latest Cretaceous, 9 from early and late Paleocene and 1 from early Eocene rocks in Wyoming, Colorado, Montana and North Dakota. Insects eat leaves in many different ways, including chewing, mining, galling, and pierc...Genetic snooze button governs timing of spring flowers
...e long periods of exposure to the cold to initiate flowering in the spring. What they have found reveals some o...That biennial strategy, Amasino explains, arose as flowering plants, which first evolved some 100 million years ago during the age of the dinosaurs, spread to fi...Scientists map the flight of the bumblebee
... as honeysuckle, comfrey, knapweed, red clover and flowering currant. The length of a bumblee's tongue influences the choice of flower species it feeds on - some long-tongued bumblebees are close to extinction in the UK (Bombus terrestris, the focus of this study, is short-tongued). Bumblebees leave chem...Salk scientists get to the root of plant cell fate
...usly identified in Arabidopsis thaliana, the first flowering plant to have its genome sequenced and a popular model organism for many aspects of plant biology. Like animals, plants develop along a polar axis, but with a root on one end and a shoot on the other. A defective TOPLESS gene, however, causes plant e...Discovery may speed forest biotechnology
...as well as the mechanism that causes them to begin flowering and produce seeds a major step forward in underst...what genes were involved in the initiation of tree flowering or the cessation of growth in the fall," said Steven Strauss, a professor of forest genetics at OSU....South Pacific plant may be missing link in evolution of flowering plants
...oductive structure may be a "missing link" between flowering plants and their ancestors. The Amborella plant, f...ent a critical link between the remarkably diverse flowering plants, known as angiosperms, and their yet to be identified extinct ancestors, said CU-Boulder Prof...Massive duplication of genes may solve Darwin's 'abominable mystery' about flowering plants
...able mystery:" the inexplicably rapid evolution of flowering plants immediately after their first appearance so...tion that preceded the appearance of the ancestral flowering plant. The results will appear in the June issue of Genome Research. Claude dePamphilis, associate ...Important gene controlling tree growth and development found
...e FT gene that was previously shown to control the flowering time of annual plants, also controls tree flowerin...also show that the same gene not only controls the flowering time of trees, but also the timing of when the trees stop growing and set bud in the fall. That the ...Scientists discover that ancient genes dictate flowering, fall bud set
...es Constans (CO) and Flowering Locus T (FT) induce flowering in response to day length. It turns out that Popul...g of the gene FT, which has been shown to regulate flowering in annual plants. Surprisingly, we found that this gene not only controls the multi-year delay in fl...Key root-development pathway mapped using advanced genomic technique
...y, Arabidopsis is a basic biological model for all flowering plants, so the finding offers insights into a critical function of all such plants, including crop plants, the researchers said. Further, since the root is a useful model for tissue development in general, basic findings regarding the root-developmen...Natural selection at single gene demonstrated
...ular on the FRIGIDA (FRI) gene, known to influence flowering time. A. thaliana was once a plant that bloomed annually. But two versions of FRI that appeared thousands of years ago enabled the plant to flower year-round, helping it out-compete other plants. Toomajian and his group showed that these two version...Ants are surprisingly ancient, arising 140-168 million years ago
...fy about 100 million years ago in concert with the flowering plants, the Harvard scientists say. Led by Corrie ...tely 100 million years ago, along with the rise of flowering plants, the angiosperms," says Pierce, the Sidney A. and John H. Hessel Professor of Biology in Harv...Ancient ants arose 140-168 million years ago
...ly about 100 million years ago in concert with the flowering plants, the scientists say. "This study integrates...talize on the ecological opportunities provided by flowering plants and the herbivorous insects that co-evolved with them," said Pierce. The herbivorous insects ...Seagrass is in decline worldwide, says UNH researcher
... sea turtles. The root and rhizome system of these flowering plants stabilizes sediments, protecting the coastline from currents and weather-related erosion. Seagrass is an effective filter of nutrients and particulates, and it is the basis of a detrital food chain that feeds fish and shellfish. When seagrass ...How flowers changed the world a new book by Field Museum scientist
... wheat; cotton, corn and coffee. All of these are flowering plants, which completely transformed the world by ...a general audience, describes the fascinating role flowering plants have played in the story of life on Earth. It is written by popular author William C. Burger,...Increased competition for pollen may lead to plant extinctions
...." The study analyzes 482 field experiments on 241 flowering plant species conducted since 1981. The research took several years to complete; all continents except Antarctica are represented. The analysis, which was sponsored by the researchers affiliated with the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Sy...Increased sexual competition among flowering plants in biodiversity hotspots may lead to extinctions
...e meta-study analyzes 482 field experiments on 241 flowering plant species conducted since 1981. The study took several years to complete and all continents except Antarctica are represented. "This analysis can tell us things about ecological processes at the global scale that individual studies are not design...Why Christmas trees are not extinct
... other conifers are 10 times shorter than those in flowering trees. But a University of Utah study suggests why...them at a serious disadvantage in competition with flowering trees in temperate forests," says Sperry. The study was part of a University of Utah doctoral thes...Science's Breakthrough of the Year: Watching evolution in action
...Year for Plants: Several key molecular cues behind flowering and other plant mysteries and surprises came to light in 2005. For example, plant molecular biologists pinned down the identity of a signal that initiates the seasonal development of flowers. Other research focused on a gene involved in stimulating f......ryo during the early stages of its development. In flowering plants, there is a complicated double-fertilisatio...endosperm develops is not fertilised.The ovules of flowering plants are housed in a carpel. Pollen lands on the flower's stigma and forms a pollen tube. It then ...