Increasing frequency and intensity of global warming pose a profound threat to plant species persistence. Most investigations on plants' resilience to heat events focus on few genotypes of model species. Novel insights into resilience mechanisms will be gained by focusing on natural variation in thermotolerance and its relationship to local-abiotic factors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlants have evolved strategies to maintain photosynthesis and mitigate tissue-damaging high light. In some dioecious seed plants, these strategies are sexually dimorphic and are linked to spatial segregation of the sexes (SSS) along light gradients. In vascular tissue-free plants (bryophytes) with separate sexes, SSS is common, but how light gradients, sexual dimorphisms, and SSS correlate is not well understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFElectrical activity is widely used for assessing a plant's response to an injury or environmental stimulus. Commonly, a differential electrode recording between silver wire leads with the reference wire connected to the soil, or a part of the plant, is used. One method uses KCl-filled glass electrodes placed into the plant, similar to recording membrane/cell potentials in animal tissues.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMany desiccation-tolerant plants are widely distributed and exposed to substantial environmental variation across their native range. These environmental differences generate site-specific selective pressures that could drive natural variation in desiccation tolerance across populations. If identified, such natural variation can be used to target tolerance-enhancing characteristics and identify trait associations within a common genetic background.
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