Higher plants

Jiuzhaigou is located in the boundary between subtropics and temperate zone. Possessing fertile soils, rich hydroresources and complicated topography, it harbors more than 2000 species of higher plants and hundreds of lower plants. The dense forests, the towering ancient trees, the beautiful meadows and the limpid lakes decorated with colorful algae make Jiuzhaigou a fairyland in man's world.     

Are red algae plants?

For 200 years prior to the 1938 publication of H. F. Copeland, all authorities (with one exception) classified red algae (Rhodophyta) within Kingdom Plantae or its equivalent. Copeland's reclassification of red algae within Kingdom Protista or Protoctista drew from an alternative tradition, dating to Cohn in 1867, in which red algae were viewed as the earliest or simplest eukaryotes. Analyses of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) sequence data initially favoured Copeland's reclassification. Many more rRNA gene (rDNA) sequences are now available from the eukaryote lineages most closely related to red algae, and based on these data, the hypothesis that red algae and green plants are sister groups cannot be rejected. An increasing body of sequence, intron-location and functional data from nuclear- and mitochondrially encoded proteins likewise supports a sister-group relationship between red algae and green plants. Submerging Kingdoms Plantae, Animalia and Fungi into Eukarya would provide a more natural framework for the eventual resolution of whether red algae are plants or prorists.     

Drought perception by plants Do cells of droughted plants experience water stress?

Because of regulations at the whole-plant level, cells of droughted plants do not necessarily experience dehydration. In fact, recent data suggest that they usually do not in the range of water deficits compatible with agriculture. In this range, leaf water potential and cell turgor are frequently maintained at high values in spite of decreasing soil water status. As a consequence, water stress cannot be defined by plant water status, except when very rapid and severe water deficits cause catastrophic events such as xylem embolism or severe cell dehydration. In water deficits compatible with agricultural situations, plant water status is in many cases tightly controlled by the plant. Water stress should then be defined by water statuses at plant boundaries, i.e. soil and air. Partial maintenance of plant water status under water deficit is allowed by controls of stomatal conductance, root and leaf expansions and leaf senescence. These processes involve both chemical and hydraulic signallings from roots. All these controls tend to reduce transpiration (stomatal closure, reduced leaf growth or leaf senescence) or to increase water uptake (maintenance of root growth or increase in root/shoot ratio). During relatively mild stresses, the role of abscisic acid, frequently considered as a stress hormone, in fact appears to be to avoid dehydration at the cellular level. In the cases described here, selecting plants for better resistance to cell dehydration may not be the best strategy for improving drought resistance of crops.     

Which companion plants affect the performance of green peach aphid on host plants? Testing of 12 candidate plants under laboratory conditions

Intercropping of companion plants (CPs) that release distinct volatile compounds with horticultural crops has been proposed to improve pest management. Although CP extracts or essential oils have been reported to be efficient in disturbing the settling of insects such as aphids, the effect of using actual CPs remains relatively unknown. Our aim was to screen odorous CP species for their effect on the performance of green peach aphid, Myzus persicae Sulzer (Hemiptera: Aphididae), when released on adjacent pepper plants. Intercropping was tested in growth chambers using potted plants to avoid root interactions and homogenise the abiotic environment of CPs. Our results indicated that eight CP species—rosemary, African marigold, French marigold, geranium, lavender, basil, chives, and pot marigold—affected aphid performance by reducing the reproductive performance and/or settlement of females. Rosemary followed by African and French marigold was associated with the largest reduction in adult female and nymph number. Chemical analyses indicated that rosemary and French marigold emit specific volatiles. In contrast, four CP species (false yellowhead, thyme, savoury, and peppermint) were not associated with a significant change in aphid performance and emitted a lower diversity of volatiles. This screening of CPs under controlled conditions may be considered as a first step towards the identification of volatiles emitted by actual plants that can affect aphid performance and help the choice of CPs to optimise intercropping strategies.     

How perennial are perennial plants?

Trade-offs involving life span are important in the molding of plant life histories. However, the empirical examination of such patterns has so far been limited by the fact that information on life span is mainly available in terms of discrete categories; annuals, semelparous perennials and iteroparous perennials. We used transition matrix models to project continuous estimates of conditional life spans from published information on size- or stage-structured demography for 71 perennial plant species. The projected life span ranged from 4.3 to 988.6 years and more than half of the species had a life span of more than 35 years. Woody plants had on average a projected life span more than four times as long as non-woody plants. Life spans were higher in forests than in open habitats and individuals of non-clonal species tended to have a longer life span than ramets of clonal species. Self-incompatible plants on average lived longer than self-compatible plants. There were no clear relations between life span and geographical region, dispersal syndrome, pollination mode, seed size or the presence of a seed bank. We conclude that accurate estimates of life span are central to understand how longevity is correlated to other traits within the group of perennial plants.     

Novel antimalarial drugs from plants?

In all countries where malaria is endemic, plants are used in traditional medicine for treatment of the disease. Examples are numerous - the plant product data base napralert (Box I) lists 152 genera which are allegedly used for the treatment of malaria. But with the urgent need to develop new, safe and effective drugs against malaria, it is vital that such claims be fully investigated. In this article, David Phillipson and Melanie O'Neill discuss the potential of plant products for new antimoloriols, drawing attention particularly to the quassinoids - a diverse group of terpenoids from the family Simoroubaceoe.     

Allometry of sexual size dimorphism in dioecious plants: do plants obey Rensch's rule?

Rensch's rule refers to a pattern in sexual size dimorphism (SSD) in which SSD decreases with body size when females are the larger sex and increases with body size when males are the larger sex. Many animal taxa conform to Rensch's rule, but it has yet to be investigated in plants. Using herbarium collections from New Zealand, we characterized the size of leaves and stems of 297 individuals from 38 dioecious plant species belonging to three distantly related phylogenetic lineages. Statistical comparisons of leaf sizes between males and females showed evidence for Rensch's rule in two of the three lineages, indicating SSD decreases with leaf size when females produce larger leaves and increases with leaf size when males produce larger leaves. A similar pattern in SSD was observed for stem sizes. However, in this instance, females of small-stemmed species produced much larger stems than did males, but as stem sizes increased, SSD often disappeared. We hypothesize that sexual dimorphism in stem sizes results from selection for larger stems in females, which must provide mechanical support for seeds, fruits, and dispersal vectors, and that scaling relationships in leaf sizes result from correlated evolution with stem sizes. The overall results suggest that selection for larger female stem sizes to support the weight of offspring can give rise to Rensch's rule in dioecious plants.     

Ghrelin in plants: what is the function of an appetite hormone in plants?

In the present work, we provide compelling evidence for the expression of a ghrelin-like peptide hormone that has only been associated with animals, in various plant tissues. Ghrelin, the appetite stimulating hormone, has been identified from a number of different species including humans, rat, pig, mouse, gerbil, eel, goldfish, bullfrog and chicken. The study here was conducted using an immunohistochemistry assay to screen whether plants have any ghrelin immunoreactivity. In this respect, Prunus x domestica L. and Marus alba were examined. Immunohistochemistry results showed that there is a strong human ghrelin immunoreactivity substance in the parenchyma cells of these plants. This was entirely unexpected since this hormone was considered to be present solely in animals. Thus, this study is the first to report the presence of a peptide with ghrelin-like activity in plants, a finding that has only been observed in the animal kingdom. RIA analysis confirmed that these plants contain significant amounts of this substance. Furthermore, reverse-phase HPLC analyses of plant extracts showed an elution characteristic of the peptide identical to that of human ghrelin. In general, fruit from both plants had higher levels of the peptide than the vegetative parts.     

Are clonal plants more tolerant to grazing than co-occurring non-clonal plants in inland dunes?

Clonal traits such as clonal integration and storage functions of rhizomes or stolons may provide clonal plants with additional advantages against grazing over non-clonal plants. Here, we hypothesize that clonal species have a larger capacity for compensatory growth than co-occurring non-clonal species. In inland dunes in northern China, individual plants of two rhizomatous clonal species (Bromus ircutensis and Psammochloa villosa) and two non-clonal ones (Artemisia intramongolica and Astragalus melilotoides) were subjected to 0% (control), 50% (moderate) and 90% (heavy) shoot removal. Compared with control, heavy clipping greatly increased the relative growth rate in Bromus and Psammochloa, but decreased that in Artemisia and Astragalus. Heavy clipping affected above-ground dry weight and the number of modules more negatively in Artemisia and Astragalus than in Bromus and Psammochloa. These results support the hypothesis and suggest that clonal species are more tolerant to grazing than co-occurring non-clonal species in inland dunes.     

How do plants make mitochondria?

Plant mitochondria can differ in size, shape, number and protein content across different tissue types and over development. These differences are a result of signaling and regulatory processes that ensure mitochondrial function is tuned in a cell-specific manner to support proper plant growth and development. In the last decade, the processes involved in mitochondrial biogenesis are becoming clearer, including; how dormant seeds transition from empty promitochondria to fully functional mitochondria with extensive cristae structures and various biochemical activities, the regulation of nuclear genes encoding mitochondrial proteins via regulators of the diurnal cycle in plants, the mitochondrial stress response, the targeting of proteins to mitochondria and other organelles and connections between the respiratory chain and protein import complexes. All these findings indicate that mitochondrial function is a part of an integrated cellular network, and communication between mitochondria and other cellular processes extends beyond the known exchange or transport of metabolites. Our current knowledge now needs to be used to gain more insight into the molecular components at various levels of this hierarchical and complex regulatory and communication network, so that mitochondrial function can be predicted and modified in a rational manner.     

When does grazing benefit plants?

Many recent studies have attempted to support the hypothesis that grazing can have positive effects on plant growth and fitness. However, a recent critical survey has shown that many of these studies suffer from poor experimental design, and consequently that the hypothesis may only be tenable under very particular circumstances.