Stories our Pictures Tell
Plants are exquisitely sensitive to the environment. Therefore, changes now occurring in our atmosphere will profoundly impact future crop productivity and natural ecology. In order to examine these impacts, Plant Biologist Stephen Long and colleagues are thoroughly analyzing crops grown annually at SoyFACE (Soybean Free Air Concentration Enrichment), a facility that they established in 2001, where ozone and/or carbon dioxide are maintained at levels forecast for the year 2050. Click the picture for more SoyFACE photos, or go here to learn about SoyFACE.
Some plant species have evolved separate male and female sexes, but most have not. The transition to separate sexes is still underway in papaya, offering Plant Biologist Ray Ming and colleagues a unique opportunity to catch this key evolutionary transition in the act. This plot compares DNA in two segments of papaya's X (dark blue bars) and Yh (hermaphrodite, green bars) chromosomes. The diagonal blue lines connect related stretches of DNA still shared by these slowly diverging, incipient sex chromosomes. Click the image for a larger version, or here to read more.
Trees are not randomly distributed within tropical forests, but grow in distinct patterns of density and dispersion. What causes these patterns is a central question in tropical ecology. Plant Biologist Jim Dalling is testing the hypothesis that soil nutrient availability plays a significant role in tree species distribution within Equador's highly biodiverse Yasuni Rainforest. This map combines soil pH data (colors) that Jim's team has collected with topography (lines) across a 50 hectare plot within the forest.
Most plant species can only briefly tolerate flooded or extreme saline conditions. The mangrove, Rhizophora mangle, on the other hand, not only tolerates, but dominates such challenging environments, often to the point of monoculture. Plant Biologist John Cheeseman and colleagues are studying the physiology underlying the peculiar adaptation of this neotropical intertidal species, shown here at one of their research sites as a tangled bank of roots on the fringe of an island off the coast of Belize in Central America.
AtProtoplasts Arabidopsis protoplasts with nuclear targetted probe fluorescing green and chloroplasts fluorescing red. Mouse over image for Differential Interference Contrast (DIC) version. From Ray Zielinski. (more details coming soon!)