Category archives: Plant biology

The light of someone’s life might not be just another person, but light in the literal sense. According to a recent study , every living system emits light without requiring external excitation due to a biological phenomenon known as ultraweak photon emission (UPE). In mice, UPE was linked to vitality as live mice emitted significantly […]

Nitric oxide (NO) is a gas generated during industrial combustion and by vehicle engines that causes damage to the ozone layer and contributes to acid rain. In this regard, early studies on NO were focused on its nature as a pollutant agent. In most living organisms, NO is endogenously produced and possess a double face […]

When plants are infected by pathogens, suffer from a lack of water or have to react to other external stimuli, the first thing they do is increase the proton and calcium concentration in the affected cells. The protons and calcium ions then act like messenger substances that trigger further reactions in the cell. The interactions […]

Oceanic islands provide useful models for ecology, biogeography and evolutionary research. Many ground-breaking findings – including Darwin’s theory of evolution – have emerged from the study of species on islands and their interplay with their living and non-living environment. Now, an international research team led by the University of Göttingen has investigated the flora of […]

Could we feed a city on Mars? This question is central to the future of space exploration and has serious repercussions on Earth too. To date, a lot of thought has gone into how astronauts eat; however, we are only beginning to produce food in space. Space launches are quite expensive. And with the growing […]

Plants that inhabit the Earth have the incredible ability to grow continually for hundreds of years, and always towards the light of the sun, which provides them with the necessary energy to sprout. At the source of this growth are changes in their environment, such as variations in light, temperature and humidity. But new stimuli […]

The San Pedro River winds from rainforests in Guatemala through the Yucatan Peninsula in eastern Mexico. There, this peaceful river widens into a series of slow-flowing lakes. Along a remote 50-mile (80-kilometer) stretch, thousands of red mangroves – trees commonly found along tropical coastlines – line the river’s banks and gentle waterfalls. Unlike mangroves elsewhere […]

Is this the first time there has been a fire of this magnitude? If there have been fires like this before, what damage was done to the mountain’s vegetation and how long did it take it to recover? Fires are quite common in the higher areas of Kilimanjaro at the end of the dry seasons […]

Populations are not static, and the geographic distribution of genetic diversity within and among populations is changing continuously. The drivers of genetic differentiation is one of the cornerstones in evolution, as genetic diversity is paramount for the ability of populations to adapt and persist in changing environments. The spatio-temporal changes in genetic diversity constantly taking […]

In great contrast to the native American persimmon, Diospyros virginiana L., which has never advanced beyond the status of a minor fruit, an oriental member of the family Ebenaceae, D. kaki L. f ., is prominent in horticulture. Perhaps best-known in America as the Japanese, or Oriental, persimmon, it is also called kaki (in Spanish […]