When seed scientists want to predict how long stored seeds can be kept before they lose their viability, and which batches might last longer than others, they do not simply wait for years to pass. Instead, they bring seeds into the laboratory and expose them to high temperatures and humidity. These conditions speed up ageing, causing damage that would normally take years to appear in just a few hours. Ultimately, the seed lots that tolerate these conditions are considered to be of higher quality than those that do not.

These experiments, known as accelerated ageing tests, have helped researchers uncover many of the changes that occur during storage, from shifts in seed chemistry to damage in cells and DNA. But one aspect has largely been overlooked: the seeds’ microbiome. Seeds are not just plant embryos—they also carry communities of microbes, especially bacteria, that can become some of the first colonists of a growing seedling. These microscopic partners may influence germination, supply useful compounds and help plants cope with stress and disease. For this reason, scientists are increasingly interested in how these microbial communities shape plant health and food security.

In a recent study published in Seed Science Research, Dr Nina Bziuk and colleagues set out to connect these two ideas. They asked whether accelerated ageing tests—widely used to assess seed quality—might also be altering the microbial communities of oilseed rape (Brassica napus), a crop valued as a major source of vegetable oil. In other words, could the way we test seeds also be changing the invisible life they carry?

To answer that question, the researchers used seeds from four plant genotypes grown at two field sites in Germany. Some seeds were left untreated, while others underwent an accelerated ageing test: 48 hours at 45°C under very high humidity. The seeds were then germinated to assess their performance.

Next, the team analysed the seed microbiome. They extracted DNA and sequenced part of the 16S rRNA gene—a commonly used genetic “barcode” that allows scientists to identify bacteria in mixed samples.

But they did not stop at DNA. The researchers also isolated live bacteria from a subset of seedlings and tested what these microbes could do. For example, they examined whether the bacteria could help plants access nutrients, produce iron-grabbing compounds or break down proteins—traits linked to plant health. By combining these approaches, the researchers could move beyond simply asking whether ageing harmed seeds—they could also identify which microbes survived, which were lost, and how these microbial shifts related to seed performance.

As expected in this kind of experiment, aged seeds performed worse. However, accelerated ageing did not simply reduce germination; it also reorganised their bacterial communities in clear and measurable ways. The biggest microbial change was a consistent decrease in bacterial diversity. Aged seeds and seedlings tended to host less varied bacterial communities, shifting towards groups dominated by Gram-positive bacteria, such as Bacillus and Tumebacillus, which are often better able to cope with harsh conditions. By contrast, several bacteria more associated with the untreated seeds, including Rhizobium, Sphingomonas and Methylobacterium, became less abundant. Another striking result was that aged seeds showed more variable bacterial communities than controls, suggesting that accelerated ageing made the microbiome less stable and predictable.

Perhaps most intriguing, the bacteria that increased after ageing were not automatically signs of healthier seeds. Higher levels of Bacillus and Tumebacillus were linked to poorer germination, even though some isolated bacteria from aged seedlings showed traits often considered beneficial for plants. That means ageing may favour hardy survivors, but not necessarily the balanced microbial community linked to good seed performance. The pattern was not completely uniform. Where the seeds had been grown and, to a lesser extent, which genotype they belonged to also influenced the microbiome. Even so, accelerated ageing was the strongest overall driver of change.

Taken together, the study suggests that when seeds age, they do not decline alone. Their microbial partners change too, and that may have real consequences for how well the next generation begins life. For seed science, this is an important shift in perspective. Storage has usually been judged by whether seeds stay alive and germinate, but this work argues that preserving the seed microbiome may also matter if we want vigorous, healthy plants after storage. While these artificial ageing conditions may not fully reflect how seeds and their microbiomes change during natural long-term storage, the findings highlight the need to rethink seed testing so that it tracks microbial health as well as seed viability. If that happens, seed banks and crop breeding programmes may one day aim not just to store seeds, but to store their invisible allies as well.

READ THE ARTICLE:

Bziuk N, Görtz S, Zur J, et al.. 2026. Accelerated aging caused diversity and specificity loss in the bacterial communities of Brassica napus seedlings. Seed Science Research: 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0960258526100099

Cover picture by Elena Beny.

Let’s try a quick experiment. Think of a tropical ecosystem, pretending you didn’t read the title of this article. I bet the picture that first comes to your mind is that of a lush evergreen rainforest packed with giant trees and hanging lianas, playful monkeys and exotic birds. But spread across multiple continents, the tropics are far from homogeneous. They span an astonishing range of elevations, climates, and soils, giving rise to a great diversity of tropical biomes: from deserts and montane grasslands to dry forests and savannas.

Ever heard of lions, zebras, or giraffes? Tropical savannas are home to some of the most renowned living creatures in the world. These grassy landscapes with scattered trees are also where we humans are thought to have come from. No small detail. However, there are those who think that many tropical savannas are nothing more than former forests transformed by human populations over centuries.

For instance, savannas in tropical Africa and Madagascar have been presumed to be the outcome of somewhat recent, human-set fires and deforestation. In India, savannas are often perceived as an unfortunate consequence of historical agricultural expansion and broadscale timber extraction under British colonial rule. This misconception that all tropical savannas have an ideal forested past remains widespread across many public, academic, and policy settings. Yet the truth is, we know little about the actual history of these and many other tropical ecosystems.

The devaluation of Indian savannas as human-degraded forests has led to their indiscriminate conversion to intensive agriculture, as well as to flawed carbon capture programmes that push large-scale tree plantations to ‘restore’ these naturally open ecosystems as closed-canopy forests. Such a lack of appreciation of tropical savannas threatens the unique flora they harbour and the traditional livelihoods of local people.

So how are we supposed to reconstruct the history of these tropical ecosystems during the human era? Seeking to complement the existing evidence from fossil records and evolutionary studies, Indian researchers Ashish Nerlekar and Digvijay Patil set out to investigate if the rich, centuries-old literary traditions from the state of Maharashtra could hold some valuable clues to the ecological history of local savannas. After all, cultural expressions generally draw inspiration from the surrounding nature of the places where they emerge. 

“The excerpts we review acknowledge the presence of the surrounding savanna flora in myriad ways—as allegories, imageries, omens and even personified as companions. Most of these excerpts come from stories that allude to a mythical past, yet they offer a glimpse into how the people of western Maharashtra have internalized the surrounding savanna landscape and flora within their literary imaginations”

Poems, folk songs, myths, biographies… The researchers went through all sorts of written and oral literature in the local Marathi language, most of them of a religious nature, searching for plant references and landscape descriptions. Through a meticulous botanical survey, each mentioned plant was assigned a modern scientific name and linked to the kind of ecosystem where it typically grows: whether forests, savannas, or both.

What they found clearly advocates for the antiquity and conservation value of tropical savannas in western Maharashtra. The majority of wild plants featured in the inspected literature were tied to grassy savannas, whereas only 7% of the species were exclusive to forests. According to the authors, such a recurring reference to savanna plants suggests the early existence of open habitats, since these species usually have a hard time germinating and growing under the closed, shady canopies you’d expect in forests.

Composed back in the 13^th century, for example, the first known Marathi text recounts the life of the Hindu saint and philosopher Cakradhara and provides invaluable glimpses of medieval Maharashtra. At some point, Cakradhara instructs his disciple on the suffering all living creatures are subject to in the perpetual cycle of birth, death, and rebirth of worldly existence―a concept related to karma and central to Hindu cosmology. To exemplify his teaching, he points to a hivara tree (Vachellia leucophloea) with its trunk full of tumours. Also appearing in plenty of other written and oral narratives, this sacred tree species can only be found in South Asian savannas and nowhere else in the world, and botanists have long considered its thick bark to be an adaptation to withstand these ecosystems’ natural fires.

Furthermore, Nerlekar and Patil found recurrent descriptions of wild, open landscapes across all literary genres, where thickets of shrubs and thorny trees grew amid a vast carpet of grasses. In other words: savannas. For instance, some ancient folk tales narrated how pastoralists arrived at certain natural grassy areas in Maharashtra after long journeys in search of better pastures for their cattle. Some evoked the foundation of prominent temples and villages, like the sacred site of Shinganapur and the principal temple of Birobā in Arewadi, revealing insightful accounts of the open vegetation that once covered the place before construction and human settlement.

Woven into such landscape descriptions, many signature savanna trees featured in those narratives too, like khaira (Senegalia catechu), hiṅgaṇa (Balanites aegyptiaca), taraṭī (Capparis divaricata), and vehaṅkaḷī (Gymnosporia senegalensis), among several others.

These pioneering ecological reconstructions rooted in traditional literature add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that tropical savannas are far older than many might think. For instance, based on data from fossil pollen, previous studies in South Asian savannas have shown that the natural expansion of these open ecosystems probably set the stage for the local development of agriculture, not vice versa. So yes, these savannas may have been used by humans for a long while, but humans were most likely not the reason they came to be in the first place.

 Just as importantly, ancient human presence doesn’t necessarily undermine the conservation value of Indian savannas. The authors of the study remind us of fairly recent discoveries that several regions of the Amazon rainforest may have been actively shaped by humans for centuries. Does that mean we should stop caring about this massive reservoir of planetary carbon and biodiversity? Not that simple.

“Reframing biodiversity conservation initiatives in tropical savannas—many of which are sacred natural sites—by explicitly valuing traditional literature as archives of biocultural histories could catalyse the conservation of both nature and culture”

All in all, the contribution of traditional literature to the understanding and protection of biodiversity doesn’t just lie in the ecological data scientists can draw from it. Those narratives are long-standing, living traditions, the researchers say, still an integral part of today’s social and religious practices and beliefs. As such, this culturally resonant knowledge has the potential to connect wider audiences with native savannas in India, fostering a sense of belonging and care, and thus strengthening conservation initiatives.

Indeed, many savannas and their woody inhabitants are sacred for local communities in Maharashtra, meaning they already occupy a central place within their worldviews and ways of life. In this context, as opposed to mainstream policy and decision-making approaches, Nerlekar and Patil argue that preserving both the biological and cultural diversity of the country’s tropical savannas should be an integrated goal, since they can reinforce each other and often face the same threats in an increasingly homogenized world.

READ THE ARTICLE

Nerlekar, A. N. & Patil, D. (2026). Utilizing traditional literature to triangulate the ecological history of a tropical savanna. People and Nature, 8: 81-98. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.70201

Spanish translation by Andrés Pereira-Guaquetá.

The sacred natural landscape at Shinganapur. Photo from the original article.

Plants are incredibly diverse, and so are botanists! In its mission to spread fascinating stories about the plant world, Botany One also introduces you to the scientists behind these great stories.

Today we have Dr Jeanmaire Molina, which (in her own words) study plants that challenge the very definition of plant life. Molina is an associate professor at Pace University in NYC, United States, and her research centers on the critically endangered Rafflesia, which produces the world’s largest and arguably stinkiest flower (hence the common name, “corpse flower”), yet is actually a parasite that lives entirely inside its sole host vine, Tetrastigma, and only emerges to produce the world’s biggest bloom! A charismatic icon of conservation, dubbed the “panda of the plant world”, Rafflesia species are only found in the dwindling forests of Southeast Asia. Molina is invested in studying all aspects of Rafflesia’s enigmatic biology so we can better protect and rescue it from the brink of extinction, integrating genomics, microbiome science, chemical ecology, and ex situ conservation.

Beyond parasitic plant biology, she also studies ethnobotany and the evolution of medicinal plants, using DNA barcoding and phylogenetics to authenticate herbal medicines and identify plant lineages with pharmacological potential while engaging students in plant research.

Driven by a passion for biodiversity conservation, Molina's work extends from laboratory discovery to global community engagement, bridging the evolutionary biology of parasitic plants with ethnobotanical research on medicinal flora. She has made it her life’s mission to conserve some of the world’s rarest plants, including pioneering efforts to cultivate Rafflesia outside its native forests, while helping cultivate the next generation of plant scientists who will safeguard this biodiversity.

What made you become interested in plants?

I grew up in Manila, Philippines, where curiosity about the natural world was encouraged by my parents. As a child, I was already collecting insects in my Barbie doll cabinet drawers and digging for queen ants to start colonies inside improvised Lego terrariums. I later studied biology at the University of the Philippines-Diliman, with dreams of becoming a NatGeo field biologist. Shortly after graduating in 2001, I met the late Filipino botanist Leonard Co, who would become one of my most influential mentors. He recruited me to work with Conservation International-Philippines and brought me to the remote forests of Palanan, so remote that getting there required a ten-hour bus ride from Manila followed by a flight on a questionable Cessna he jokingly called the “flying coffin”. I assisted Sir Leonard (how we address mentors in the Philippines) tagging and identifying trees as part of a long-term ecological monitoring study. Packing over 300 tree species in a tiny forest patch (microscopic compared to the size of NY state, which has only about a third as many tree species), I began to wonder: how does such extraordinary biodiversity evolve and persist? That question ultimately led me to the US in 2003 to pursue a PhD in Ecology and Evolution at Rutgers University.

What motivated you to pursue your current area of research?

As a child, I had read about Rafflesia in the Guinness Book of World Records, but I first saw it in person in Malaysia during a field course as a graduate student. A spectacle to behold, it was love at first sight! I was captivated by its size, odor and evolutionary audacity —a parasitic plant with no stems, roots, or leaves, just a giant flower! At the time, though, as a graduate student, I didn’t yet have the resources to study it. That opportunity came nearly a decade later, when I started my own research program as a newly minted biology professor. Somewhat naively, I set out to do something that had never been done before: grow Rafflesia for ex situ conservation.  It had never been cultivated outside Asia, translating to lost opportunities for the public to be equally captivated by such an evolutionary marvel, yet now perilously close to extinction.

To fund my first field expedition, I launched a small crowdfunding campaign and even invoked Lady Gaga in my pitch, hoping she might notice. She didn’t. But the US Botanic Garden (USBG) in DC did, beginning a partnership that helped support my vision. Over the past decade, that collaboration has grown into a sustained effort to propagate Rafflesia at USBG, despite the many logistical and biological challenges. I’ve always been driven by one vivid vision: a Philippine Rafflesia blooming in a western botanic garden, serving as a powerful ambassador for biodiversity conservation, while bringing urgent attention to the dwindling forests of Southeast Asia.

 At the same time, I realised that not every student shares my somewhat inexplicable fascination with peculiar parasitic plants. Wishing to engage more students in plant science, I expanded my research into ethnobotany and herbal medicine, even developing college courses around these topics. Through this, my hope is that students learn how deeply human well-being depends on plant diversity, reinforcing the same core message that drives my work: biodiversity matters.

 What is your favourite part of your work related to plants?

 The discovery is my favorite part: from searching for these rare plants in remote forests and being constantly awed by the extraordinary biodiversity around them, to working in the lab extracting DNA, microbiomes and metabolites to catch a glimpse of the hidden biology of these enigmatic species. Equally rewarding is sharing these discoveries with my students and inspiring them to dig deeper! For me, research is a bit like slowly opening a gift. You peel back the layers one by one, and with each layer comes new clues that guide you toward the next, bringing you closer to understanding how these unique plants live and evolve.

Are any specific plants or species that have intrigued or inspired your research? If so, what are they and why?

Yes. I've always been drawn to evolutionary outliers like Rafflesia and its close relatives, Sapria and Rhizanthes. Like Rafflesia, they are obligate parasites of Tetrastigma, and no one knows how this intimate symbiosis evolved, and it is one of life’s burning questions to resolve. These plants push the limits of what we think a plant should be. This fascination has gradually expanded into a broader interest in other unusual parasitic plants, such as Hydnora and Monotropa, which, like Rafflesia, independently diverged from their autotrophic ancestry. I hope to understand how such unrelated lineages have repeatedly evolved similar parasitic strategies despite being separated by deep evolutionary history. Unfortunately, many of these evolutionary marvels are rare or threatened, and very few exist in botanical collections around the world. Establishing viable collections of parasitic plants in botanical gardens could provide important safeguards for these least plant-like plants, while also creating powerful opportunities to educate the public about evolution and biodiversity.

Could you share an experience or anecdote from your work that has marked your career and reaffirmed your fascination with plants?

One moment that profoundly shaped my career was seeing Rafflesia in full bloom again after nearly ten years, this time in the Philippines, my home country and the hub of Rafflesia diversity. It felt deeply personal, and I found myself falling in love all over again. By then, I had just begun my faculty position and was starting to build my own research program. During that trip, I collected samples for electron microscopy. We were astonished to observe plastid-like structures, even though repeated attempts to recover a chloroplast genome failed. The chloroplast genome is widely considered a defining feature of plants--until Rafflesia. The result stunned us, but we published the findings, nonetheless, cautiously framing our conclusion the “possible loss of the chloroplast genome”. This prompted the provocative headline in Science News: “When is a plant no longer a plant?” That moment marked a turning point in my career. It impressed upon me just how radically plants can evolve. I need to know why and how, and I have a lifetime to slowly peel the layers. From then on, it became an obsession, even commemorated in a shoulder tattoo of Rafflesia leonardi, named in honor of my late mentor who first guided me into the forests.

What advice would you give young scientists considering a career in plant biology?

My advice is simple: passion is key, an unrelenting motivation to learn more about these plants. That passion will drive you to do whatever it takes to answer your questions, whether it means trekking through treacherous terrain in search of elusive species or running experiments in the lab even on weekends. When problems arise, passion keeps you moving forward toward the finish line.

And the true reward, beyond the scientific publication, is the satisfaction of peeling back another layer of the mystery and uncovering a bit of knowledge that could make the difference in conserving nature’s evolutionary marvels.

What do people usually get wrong about plants?

People often see plants as just part of the backdrop of life--something we pass by without much thought. We take them for granted. But in reality, our existence is inextricably linked to plants--from the food we eat, to the medicines that heal us, to the materials that make our clothes and homes, and even the oxygen we breathe!

 Because Rafflesia is a plant parasite that reeks like rotting meat, I’m often asked: why conserve it? But parasites play important ecological roles. In much the same way predators help keep prey populations in balance, parasites regulate their hosts, preventing overgrowth that could negatively affect other species and reduce biodiversity. I argue that plant parasites are not merely evolutionary oddities; they are ecological keystone species, shaping host population dynamics, altering competition, and influencing biodiversity. Part of my life’s mission is to help change how people think about plants, beginning with my students, and make them realize that we are part of this intricate web of interactions--stewards of the fragile symbiosis that sustains these corpse flowers. The survival of Rafflesia reflects the health of the forests that, in turn, sustain us all.

Plants actively manage the water flowing through their limbs – and leaves of all shapes and sizes play a central role. Indeed, plants are known to tailor their leaves to optimize water use in different environments. For example, conifers produce shorter leaves in dry soils, higher elevation and at the tops of trees.

Until now, most studies assumed that when pine trees grow shorter needles it's because the lack of water restricted leaf growth. But a new study published in Annals of Botany has turned this thinking on its head. Instead, Bicego and colleagues found that by altering needle length, conifers can control ‘hydraulic resistance’, the physics behind water movement in plants.

“Bicego et al. (2025) discovered that shorter pine needles significantly reduce hydraulic resistance, especially in drought-prone or high-canopy environments,” writes Roman Gebauer in a commentary on the article. “This insight reframes needle length not as a developmental constraint but as an adaptive trait, with implications for understanding conifer resilience under drought and climate change.”

Hydraulic resistance is the mechanical force by which a plant controls the flow of water from soil to leaf. The more resistance offered – the slower the water moves, and vice versa. Critical to this resistance is the width and placement of water conduits called xylem, a type of transport tissue used by plants for water movement.

Based on their findings, conifers use shorter needles to maintain higher hydraulic efficiency, which is known to improve photosynthetic rates, growth and survival, especially in drought prone areas. The shorter leaves also help overcome the great heights of the sequoia, where gravitational constraints can affect the ability of water to reach the top.

To reach their conclusion, the scientists studied pine needles from living trees and herbarium specimens stored at the National Herbarium of Mexico at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). They measured the widths of tracheids – specialized cells that form long, lignified tubes for water transport in vascular plants – along the length of needles, from base to tip, in four pine species (Pinus devoniana, P. montezumae, P. hartwegii, P. pseudostrobus) and a sequoia (Sequoia sempervirens). These same species were also included in a broader comparison of 22 species’ tracheid diameters measured at the base of the leaf. Measurements were mathematically correlated against the length of the needle to study the effect on hydraulic resistance.

"This study offers a novel perspective on the significance of shorter needle length observed in conifers in dry environments and in the tallest trees (i.e. redwoods)," write Bicego and colleagues.

Well-known for its height, the awe-inspiring sequoia has increasingly shorter needles at greater crown heights. Now we know why.

READ THE ARTICLE: Bicego, G., Olson, M., Gernandt, D., and Anfodillo, T.(2025) Needle length in pines as a key trait regulating hydraulic resistance. Annals of Botany, 137(2), pp. 393-404. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcaf174.

READ THE COMMENTARY: Gebauer, R. (2025) Needle length matters. A commentary on ‘Needle length in pines as a key trait regulating hydraulic resistance’. Annals of Botany, 137(2), pp. vii-viii. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcaf274.

Cover image: One of the species studied, the Coast Redwood tree Sequoia sempervirens by danielkennedy/ iNaturalist CC BY 4.0

Aluminium is a toxic element for most plants, where it inhibits root growth, causes oxidative stress, and impairs the uptake of essential nutrients. However, some species have evolved strategies to accumulate this metal without significant damage, and until now most studies have focused on vascular plants, such as tolerant trees and grasses from the Cerrado and other ecosystems.

A new study published in Planta reveals that two common Cerrado moss species not only tolerate high levels of this metal, but also use cellular strategies similar to those already described for vascular plants.

In the campos rupestres of Brazil, mosses form mats over quartzitic and ferruginous outcrops, where soils are acidic, nutrient-poor and naturally rich in aluminium. In this context, Oliveira and collaborators’ work investigated two species, Campylopus lamellatus and Polytrichum juniperinum, which grow on quartz and ironstone substrates at Serra da Calçada in the south-east of the country, to understand how these mosses deal with aluminium. After confirming that both environments had high levels of the metal, the researchers used histological techniques and Morin fluorescence to track where and how aluminium accumulates in mosses tissues.

Both species accumulate aluminium, but in distinct cellular compartments. Campylopus lamellatus stores the metal mainly in the cell walls. Contrastingly, in Polytrichum juniperinum aluminium is likely compartmentalised in vacuoles, organelles known for their storage function, and chloroplasts, the ones responsible for photosynthesis. These two mechanisms reflect strategies observed in aluminium-tolerant vascular plants, both in the Cerrado and other ecosystems worldwide, revealing a striking example of evolutionary convergence between different plant lineages.

The study also highlights an important detail: the specialised water-conducting tissues in both species showed low affinity for aluminium, suggesting a level of protection for internal transport pathways even in mosses. Methodologically, the work is also innovative, representing the first application of Morin fluorescence to bryophytes in the context of Cerrado soils, extending the use of a technique already established in angiosperms.

Taken together, these results challenge the idea that aluminium accumulation is a trait restricted to certain vascular plants. Instead, they suggest that aluminium tolerance and sequestration may be much more widely distributed among land plants than previously thought, extending deep into the evolutionary history of bryophytes.

READ THE ARTICLE:

Oliveira MF, Arriola ÍA, Rodrigues-Mattos GH, et al.. 2025. Aluminum accumulation in mosses from the Brazilian savanna: a comparative study of two species revealing similar traits to vascular plants. Planta 261. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-025-04690-5

Portuguese translation by Pablo o Santos.

Cover picture: Polytrichum juniperinum by Stephen James McWilliam (Wikimedia Commons).

Mediterranean coastal cliffs are tough places to grow. Plants living there have to cope with salty air, strong winds, and almost no soil. Many of these species, including several Limonium (sea lavender), are endemic and found only in these environments. A recent study published in AoB PLANTS highlights the spread of Kalanchoe × houghtonii, a hybrid succulent probably originating from cultivation, into these habitats, where it may represent a risk to native plants such as Limonium species. 

Kalanchoe × houghtonii is a popular garden plant but has traits that help it establish in the wild. It spreads by producing tiny plantlets along the edges of its leaves, which detach and root easily. This allows it to colonise new areas quickly, especially in environments where growing from seeds is difficult.

Fieldwork at two sites located on the southern coast of Catalonia (NE Iberian Peninsula) showed that the species forms dense monospecific patches that often overlap with those of native Limonium species, suggesting that it may compete with them for space in these already limited environments.

To understand its distribution, Joan Pere Pascual-Díaz and colleagues collected 723 records from iNaturalist. These data show that Kalanchoe × houghtonii is already present in several Mediterranean countries. 

The species has been recorded in 107 Natura 2000 sites, areas designated for biodiversity conservation in Europe. Of these, 58 are within a protected coastal habitat known as “vegetated sea cliffs of the Mediterranean coasts with endemic Limonium species,” indicating that the spread is not limited to a single location. 

Models predicting where the species could grow suggest that large areas of Mediterranean coasts have suitable conditions for Kalanchoe × houghtonii. These areas also overlap with where Limonium species grow, increasing the chances of interaction between them.

While the study does not directly measure long-term impacts, the observed patterns (dense growth, overlap with native species and presence in protected areas) suggest that the plant could have important ecological effects, especially by competing for space and resources. 

“In this context, the formation of dense juvenile carpets by K. × houghtonii in areas occupied by Limonium individuals supports competition for space as a plausible mechanism potentially contributing to the threat to the native species”. 

Despite of its spread and invasive characteristics, Kalanchoe × houghtonii is still missing from many national invasive species lists in Mediterranean countries. This limits coordinated monitoring and management efforts.

The authors recommend including it in these lists, together with systematic monitoring of its spread and impacts. Early detection may help manage the species more effectively, particularly in sensitive habitats. 

READ THE ARTICLE 

Pascual-Díaz J. P. López-Pujol J. Nualart N., Garcia S. and Vitales D. (2026) “The impact of the invasive Kalanchoe × houghtonii on vegetated sea cliffs of the Mediterranean coasts with endemic Limonium species” AoB PLANTS. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/aobpla/plag016 

Cover image: Kalanchoe × houghtonii by Jonathan / iNaturalist CC BY

As more people live in cities, everyday contact with nature is shrinking. That means fewer chances to notice, interact with and grow familiar with the living world around us. This “extinction of experience”, as researchers like to call it, is far from trivial: if people are increasingly unfamiliar with wildlife, they might be less likely to support conservation initiatives or manage their own green spaces in ways that help biodiversity.

This idea connects to biophilia, the tendency for humans to feel drawn to nature through positive emotions such as compassion and a sense of beauty. Earlier studies have shown that these reactions vary widely depending on age, gender and previous contact with nature. That is where gardens become especially interesting. Domestic gardens make up a surprisingly large share of urban green space, and for many people they offer regular, close-to-home contact with birds, insects, worms and other creatures. Previous research has suggested that gardening is linked to more positive feelings towards wildlife. What remains unclear is whether different kinds of gardening shape those feelings in different ways.

In a recent study, Quentin Dutertre and colleagues tackled that question in People and Nature by surveying 1,000 people in France about their experiences with nature and their emotional reactions to 53 animal species. The sample included both people who owned a garden and people who did not, allowing the researchers to compare the two groups rather than focus only on keen gardeners.

Participants were shown photographs of animals and asked how they felt about them. The study used 53 pictures representing 48 species, including birds, mammals and a range of invertebrates such as slugs, earthworms and insects. Among the invertebrates, the authors also grouped species by what they do in a vegetable garden: some were pollinators, some helped break down organic matter, some were natural enemies of pests, and some were pests themselves. Each person rated five randomly selected pictures, scoring how beautiful, frightening or disgusting the animal seemed, and how motivated they would be to save it if it were in danger. The researchers then combined those answers into a “biophilia index”, a general measure of positive or negative feelings towards the animal shown.

The survey also asked about people’s own experiences with nature. Did they have a garden? How often did they garden? Did they grow vegetables, and if so, how much space did that take up? How often did they visit other green spaces, such as parks or natural areas? The team then tested whether these experiences were linked to the biophilia scores, while also accounting for factors such as age, gender and the fact that different animals naturally provoke different reactions.

What emerged was a clear pattern: regular contact with nature seems to soften people’s feelings towards wildlife. People who lived in homes with gardens showed warmer feelings towards wildlife overall than those without one, suggesting that simply having regular access to a garden may help people become more comfortable with the animals that share those spaces. Across the survey as a whole, people who gardened more often and those who visited green spaces more frequently tended to show higher biophilia scores, meaning more compassion and appreciation, and less fear and disgust, towards the animals they were shown.

Garden owners also scored higher than people without gardens, even when those non-owners said they would like to have one. That matters because it suggests the difference is not simply that nature-loving people choose homes with gardens. Instead, having a garden may itself help nurture warmer feelings towards wildlife. The effect was not just about time spent weeding or watering. The authors argue that gardens may matter because they create frequent, meaningful encounters with nature, whether through watching birds, noticing insects or simply paying closer attention to the living things around the home.

The results also show that not all gardening experiences work in exactly the same way. Among people with gardens, simply having a larger vegetable patch did not raise biophilia across the board. But it did matter for certain animals. Gardeners with larger vegetable gardens tended to feel more positively about natural enemies of pests, species that protect crops by eating harmful insects. This suggests that growing food may help people appreciate species that perform useful ecological jobs, even if they might otherwise be overlooked.

Surprisingly, though, gardeners did not become more hostile to pests. If anything, spending more time gardening was linked to slightly more positive feelings even towards species that can damage crops. In other words, closer involvement with gardening did not seem to make people more negative towards troublesome wildlife. It may instead make them more familiar with, and perhaps more tolerant of, the living community that comes with a garden.

That matters beyond the back garden. More frequent gardening was also linked to warmer feelings towards vertebrates, including species not usually found in gardens. Together, these findings suggest that nature experiences at home may do more than improve opinions of familiar garden animals; they may help build a wider emotional openness to wildlife. The authors therefore suggest that access to nearby green spaces could help build the emotional connections that support conservation, and that community gardens or well-designed public green areas might offer similar benefits for people without private gardens.

Taken together, the study suggests that helping people feel closer to wildlife may be as much about everyday experience as grand conservation messaging. Gardens, parks and other urban green spaces are not just pleasant extras. They may help build the emotional ties that make people more accepting of wildlife and more willing to support its protection. Dutertre and colleagues point to a future in which cities are designed not only for people, but also for richer encounters with the living world. If those encounters encourage more thoughtful gardening and broader support for conservation, they may create a positive feedback loop that benefits both people and biodiversity.

READ THE PAPER:

Dutertre Q, Lachaise M, Collard B, Baudry E. 2026. Cultivating biophilia: Domestic gardens foster positive emotions towards wildlife, with gardening influence shaped by species' ecological functions. People and Nature. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.70283

Spanish and Portuguese translation by Erika Alejandra Chaves-Díaz

Cover picture: Common hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus). Photo by PetroKaterynych (Wikimedia Commons).

Today’s Plant of the Week has given me a bit of a race to get this online. Most of it will be written in advance, but today is a special day for Fritillaria meleagris in part of the UK. In the village of Ducklington it’s Fritillary Sunday, the one day of the year one of the local fields is opened to the public, allowing people to walk among the flowers.

The common name for the plant in the UK is the Snake’s Head Fritillary, but the chequered pattern shows why it can be known by other names, like Chequered Daffodil or Chess Flower. The epithet, meleagris, means “spotted like a guineafowl”.

Fritillaria meleagris is a relative of the Lily; they’re in the same family the Liliaceae. If you’re a gardener it’s possible to grow if you have a combination of sun and damp soil. But if you’re also a pet owner you might want to be careful as they are extremely toxic to cats. What I didn’t realise, till I looked up a link for that, is that it is toxic to humans too.

Soil can be moist to waterlogged over the winter. Unlike many plants it’ll tolerate some flooding in winter, which clears out the competition. It’s capable of lying dormant for over a year if circumstances aren’t to its liking. It’ll also use micro-topography, the small undulations and wrinkles in the landscape you barely notice when you walk over, so that plants in the same locality can still experience different conditions. This, along with the dormancy, allows some bulbs to pop up each year, though probably not all bulbs in a given year. It means that counts of the plants can vary wildly from one year to the next.

It’s found in Scandinavia and Europe from France across as far as western Russia. It has been protected in the past as an endangered species. However, it seems that it’s an introduced species rather than a native. There’s no record of it in the UK before the 16th century, and that would be suspicious for a native plant like this. In another post, I use a quote from Kevin Walker: “It seems inconceivable that such an attractive plant would have been overlooked in the wild by herbalists in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.” If it is accepted as an introduced species then it will lose protection as a plant in the UK, but the sites where it lives are still likely to stay protected, and that's because there’s a reason why it’s rare in the UK.

Fritillaria meleagris does not like being disturbed once it’s settled down. That means the land cannot be ploughed. The liking for floodplains in the UK means the land cannot be drained. That puts in it opposition to intensive agriculture and agriculture has definitely intensified. The UK has lost 97% or 98% of its meadows since the Second World War, though there’s some nuance in that. The field at Ducklington, and some other sites, are protected from modern agriculture, allowing them to hang on.

If you want to see them in the wild, then there are a few places, but these are usually protected reserves or private property. That rarity has created a fund-raising-opportunity for Saint Bartholomew's Church in Ducklington. They have an arrangement with the local farmer that, once a year, a field that may or may not have a display of fritillaries is opened for the public to walk through. It's become an event on the calendar that many in the village look forward to. The flowers add something extra to the church fund-raising that cake sales, art displays and morris-dancing that everywhere else has for their events.

The field this year was full of many people wandering through, leisurely enjoying the flowers, and one person swearing at the flowers for blowing in the wind just at the moment that he tried taking a photo. It was a breezy day, but only once you'd got the camera to focus on the flowers.

There were no obvious clumps of flowers in the field, but rather a general scatter. To my eyes it's a flat field, though as you walk through it, it's clear that it has its hard and soft patches, so this would indicate there's some microtopographical variation that the plants can respond to. As usual, when I left the field I wondered if they were having the same timing issues for the event as Thriplow's Daffodil festival. As usual, by the time I'd reached the church I'd forgotten to ask.

What I like about events like this, is they bring people together with plants in their environment. We talk about what’s most interesting about plants, but what I find most boring about plants is that so often they’re treated like furnishing or ornaments. I think connecting plants to their environment, and reminding people how important these connections are is more valuable than just saying, “look at this pretty plant”. That it is pretty is a bonus.

Cover image: Fritillaria meleagris by Boris Belchev / iNaturalist CC BY-NC

Colombia is one of a small group of "megadiverse" countries, nations so extraordinarily rich in species that they collectively account for the majority of life on Earth. It ranks second in the world for plant diversity, and is home to more orchid species than any other country. I'll confess that before putting this hunt together my mental image of Colombia was mostly rainforest, and while it does still hold large areas of primary Amazonian forest, that picture misses most of the story. The country spans five distinct natural regions: Caribbean coast, Pacific lowlands, Andes, Llanos and Amazon. It's the collision of those worlds, particularly the layering of the Andes into lowland forest, cloud forest and páramo, that drives the extraordinary diversity. The nine plants below come from across that range, from the giant water lilies of the Amazon basin to the frailejones and wax palms of the high Andes.

I'm certain we're going to come back here again and again and again.

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Cover image: Ceroxylon quindiuense by Jason Searle CC BY-NC

Sudoku Garden needs a seed to generate its puzzles, and this week the seed comes from Ventura Botanical Gardens, which is hosting Tomatomania. I was looking for a quote by Welsh author about American tomatoes, but I couldn’t pin it down. It’s probably for the best, as he wasn’t complimentary. Instead, I’ll offer this history of tomatoes in America by Craig Lehoullier which covers the story of tomato acceptance.

Cover image by FrankieFiveToes from Pixabay

Photos of plants just like the ones you take on your phone could have value for hard science. Photos taken by citizen scientists and uploaded to iNaturalist allowed Patrick McKenzie and colleagues to confirm a suspicion botanists had about the colour of Monarda fistulosa, wild bergamot or beebalm. Plants in the west of North America can be a deeper purple than plants from the east.

The colour of a flower is important because is a major signal to pollinators, though colour alone is not enough to attract a pollinator. Understanding the variation of colour in flowers will help pick apart some of the factors in what attracts or repels a pollinator when visiting.

Finding out if anecdotes reflected the truth about Monarda fistulosa seems simple. Sure, plants can be variable, but if you gather enough But with plants being so variable, you need to examine a lot of plants. In their article, McKenzie and colleagues explain why no one has done the obvious work: “Studying flower color typically requires performing pigment extractions or analyzing standardized photography or full spectral reflectance patterns. These approaches require time, financial resources, and access to private and restricted public lands.” An alternative approach was needed, and the platform iNaturalist provided this.

iNaturalist has around 400,000 active users, and over four million have contributed something during the project’s 18 years. It produces a lot of data. The team downloaded over 41,000 photos of Monarda fistulosa from GBIF, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. They then used some off-the-shelf tools to classify and segment the data.

The first was GPT-4o, using the prompt: “Answer YES or NO: Is this a high-quality close-up photo of a beebalm flower?” I appreciate some readers will be annoyed by this, but wait till I discuss page 9 of the supplementary data. Half the time, the answer was no, so the machine did a lot of filtering. If the answer was yes, the photo was then passed to Roboflow, which ran the semantic segmentation model.

This identified what bits of the photo were the flower, and so what colours actually mattered. Once the system knew what pixels it was looking for, it was able to quantify the colour of the petals. As each photo on iNaturalist has a lot of metadata attached including, crucially, location, you can start asking the question “How does colour vary with location?”

The answer is that if you want to see a Monarda fistulosa with a deep violet corolla, then you should head west. The importance of the paper isn’t so much the result as the method. Combining AI and computer vision, McKenzie and colleagues have created a workflow that can look at colours of any plant if you have enough data, and can be expanded to look at further questions. It’s a relatively simple method that makes use of a lot of material that’s already been gathered, and waiting to be analysed.

But that’s not the part that caught my eye.

The part I really like starts a page 9 in the Supplementary Material and carries on to page 44. It’s a big section, and it starts: “We would like to thank the following iNaturalist observers whose images were used in the final dataset:” And I like that a lot, because in the metadata, along with location and date is the name of the observer who took the image. So it should be possible to extract them and thank them. And it seems it was with what seems to almost 10,000 user names listed. If you’ve taken a photo of beebalm in the USA, then you might have been credited.

The paper is, unfortunately behind a paywall, but most authors are delighted to hear when someone takes an interest in their work. If you’re reading this a few months after this has been posted then you could try emailing the authors. Patrick McKenzie is also on Bluesky @patrickmckenzie.bsky.social.

READ THE PAPER

McKenzie, P., Church, S., and Hopkins, R. (2025) High-throughput iNaturalist image analysis reveals flower color divergence in Monarda fistulosa. The American Naturalist. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1086/739413.

Cover image: Monarda fistulosa in Utah by echestler / iNaturalist CC BY-NC

Take a journey to the mysterious depths of the deep blue seas – and explore the kelp forests of the northwestern United States. The Seattle Aquarium's Kelp Quest team is crowdsourcing volunteers to help map these forests in a seafloor survey. Their goal is to conserve, restore and sustain this highly productive underwater ecosystem.

“Kelp forests are critically important to the health of our coastlines, yet they are fragile and increasingly threatened, including by climate change," says Dr. Zachary Randell, senior research scientist at the Seattle Aquarium and leader of their Coastal Climate Resilience team. "Our ocean surveys help us better understand the conditions that support healthy kelp forests, so that conservation and restoration efforts can protect these crucial ecosystems for generations to come.”

Kelp is a collective term for seaweeds that are large brown algae in the Laminariales order. Technically, they are not plants but macroalgae that perform photosynthesis. Kelp forests are important because they are critical to the health of ocean ecosystems. They provide food, shelter and nursery habitats for thousands of different species – from microscopic invertebrates to whales. They also protect shorelines from degradation.

To better understand kelp forests, scientists at the Seattle Aquarium are conducting what's known as a benthic survey – an underwater map of the seafloor. They are capturing thousands of images of kelp habitat using remotely operated underwater vehicles that can dive up to 100 metres (328 ft). The pictures include details such as rocks, sand and the seaweed itself. The scientists hope to use these images to better understand how the ocean environment influences whether kelp thrives or struggles.

“Using downward-facing lights and cameras, we captured high-resolution photographs of the seafloor, one image every metre (3.28 feet), at an altitude (remotely operated vehicle height above the seafloor) of 0.8 metres (2.62 feet),” write the Kelp Quest team on Zooniverse.

To automate analysis, the scientists developed a machine learning model to help label the images by pattern matching. But the model is still learning and makes mistakes. And that’s why the Seattle Aquarium is now crowdsourcing volunteers to help with ‘Kelp Quest’. Human eyes are needed to confirm or refute the model's image labels.

“Unlike tropical coral reefs, kelp forests thrive in cold, nutrient-rich conditions. These nutrients fuel plankton growth, which makes the water green and full of particles. Underwater visibility is often less than 4 metres (13 feet), making both remotely operating vehicle piloting and image interpretation challenging,” write the Kelp Quest team.

By reviewing the images, volunteers will help the scientists identify kelp and other algae as well as fish, mobile and sessile invertebrates, and the ocean floor’s physical substrate (e.g. pebble, sand, wood). A useful Field Guide describes each category and advice for tricky situations.

“Categorizing images won’t always be easy—and that’s part of why your work is so valuable!” say the Kelp Quest team. “Weather conditions, current, visibility underwater and tides are just a few of the environmental challenges we face when out on (and below!) the water.”

For example, the human eye is still better at resolving issues due to uneven illumination, edge distortion, algal decomposition and similarity between macroalgal species than the machine learning tool.

The data generated from this seafloor survey will have a real impact on ecological monitoring, conservation and restoration in Elliott Bay (offshore Seattle) and two sites in the San Juan Islands (an archipelago off northwest Washington State), where the images were taken. Additionally, these advances in tools and understanding will have a global impact because all data will be shared as part of the team’s open source, open access research model.

“Most importantly, your work helps turn underwater images into knowledge and knowledge into action for kelp forest conservation,” say the Kelp Quest team.

They hope you join their underwater exploration.

READ MORE: Kelp Quest (Seattle Aquarium)

READ MORE ABOUT MACROALGAE: Hanley, M., Firth, L., and Foggo, A. (2023) Victim of changes? Marine macroalgae in a changing world. Annals of Botany, 133(1), pp. 1-16. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcad185.

Cover image: Bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana) as part of a kelp forest. Photo credit: Eiko Jones.

Plants are incredibly diverse, and so are botanists! In its mission to spread fascinating stories about the plant world, Botany One also introduces you to the scientists behind these great stories.

Today, we have Dr Jason Cantley, an evolutionary botanist and teacher-scholar at San Francisco State University in the United States. His research explores how plant diversity is generated and maintained, particularly in island and semi-arid ecosystems, using phylogenetics and conservation genetics. At its core, Cantley’s work asks how evolutionary history shapes the present, and how that knowledge can help conserve rare and threatened species.

Working at a primarily undergraduate, minority-serving institution shapes how he does science. Cantley’s lab is collaborative and student-centred, creating access to fieldwork, herbarium research, and collections-based science for students who might not otherwise have those opportunities. Many of his students go on to professional roles in conservation agencies, environmental consulting, and graduate programmes. Training the next generation of biodiversity and conservation leaders, as he puts it, is one of the most meaningful parts of his career. Cantley’s research continues to be shaped by work in California, Hawaiʻi, and Australia, and he enjoys helping students connect big evolutionary stories to real conservation decisions. You can find more information about Cantley’s lab on its website.

What made you become interested in plants?

My interest in plants deepened as I began encountering new floras. Moving from Ohio to Kentucky as an undergraduate, I learned to recognise how Midwestern floristic elements intersect with the Southern Appalachian mixed mesophytic and Eastern Deciduous forests. Species composition shifted across short distances, and I began to see floras as reflections of geology, climate, and history rather than lists of plants.

That curiosity took me to tropical north Queensland, Australia, where I immersed myself in studying the language of plant systematics in an entirely new flora. This is where I trained my plant vision through lived experiences. Total immersion in eucalypt woodlands and relic rainforest patches reshaped how I thought about biodiversity and evolutionary relationships.

Graduate school in Hawaiʻi transformed that foundation into a passionate love for plants. Island biogeography and adaptive radiation were visible across lava flows, alpine cinder cones, rainforests, and bogs. Finding members of the silversword alliance felt like a treasure hunt through shifting habitats. Encountering coastal and inland mountain forms of ʻilima, Sida fallax, revealed how subtle changes in elevation and precipitation shape variation. The alignment of honeycreeper bills and tubular lobeliad flowers made co-evolution tangible. Plants changed how I see the world.

What motivated you to pursue your current area of research? 

My early research was rooted in Hawaiʻi, where I immersed myself in the evolutionary detail of island systems. I studied a wind-pollinated group of Rubiaceae, the genus Coprosma, and became fascinated by how these endemic lineages diversified across isolated landscapes. That work drew me into field research in New Zealand and pushed me to think about biogeography across the Pacific Ocean. I began to see species not as isolated units, but as pieces of a much larger evolutionary and geographic story.

Returning to Australia for my postdoctoral work felt like a full-circle moment. It was where I had first learned to love plants, and now I was studying the evolution of sexual systems and biogeography in spiny solanums. That experience broadened my comparative lens and gave me my first sustained opportunity to involve undergraduates in meaningful research and fieldwork. Watching students engage directly with evolutionary questions in real landscapes changed how I thought about my role as a scientist.

Over time, curiosity deepened into responsibility. As I witnessed vulnerable endemic species and shifting ecosystems, conservation became central to my work. At San Francisco State, I now pair evolutionary research with mentorship, motivated to train students who will become the next generation of conservation leaders shaping how biodiversity is protected in a changing world. Watching them step into roles where their decisions shape real landscapes feels like the most meaningful extension of my work.

What is your favourite part of your work related to plants? 

Being in the field is what I love most. After spending hours doing bioinformatic analyses, writing, and measuring morphological traits from herbarium specimens, nothing replaces seeing plants where they live. The field brings the work to life in a way no dataset can.

Encountering a species in its own habitat carries a particular kind of excitement. You see it anchored in soil, shaped by wind, surrounded by neighbours. Sometimes they appear exactly where you expected. Sometimes they surprise you. Years later, finding them again in a different valley or at a different elevation can feel like rediscovering an old friend under new circumstances. Each encounter adds depth, complexity, and intimacy.  

When I take the time to slow down and let plants reveal themselves, I learn more than any at any other time in the research process. In the field, I am open to receiving new information. My mind quiets and my attention sharpens. There is deep satisfaction in noticing more, in letting patterns emerge through lived experience. A resulting mix of curiosity, surprise, and clarity is grounding. It brings me back to the sense of discovery that first drew me to plants.

Are there specific plants that have intrigued or inspired your research?

The Hawaiian silversword alliance was my first great inspiration. Seeing Argyroxiphium sandwicense on Maui, their silver rosette of leaves rising from red and black cinders in Haleakalā crater, felt almost unreal. That contrast of color and form against a volcanic landscape is something I still carry with me. Later, encountering Wilkesia on Kauaʻi in Waimea Canyon and Dubautia in wet forests of O‘ahu made the radiation feel even more astonishing. A single lineage expressing itself so differently across islands and habitats reshaped how I understood adaptive radiation.

Australia offered a different kind of revelation. I could not stop thinking about the unsung diversity of eucalypts within the Myrtaceae, or the incredible range of forms in Proteaceae, especially Banksia and Grevillea. The gummy bear–colored red, orange, and yellow flowers of Grevillea refracta against silvery foliage are burned into my memory.

During my postdoctoral work, I became captivated by the spiny solanums, especially Solanum asymmetriphyllum. I still think about one enormous individual growing protected from fire in a fissure of an ancient boulder in Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, her branches heavy with hundreds of golf ball sized fruits. I imagine her as a matriarch who has seeded countless offspring and is perfectly adapted to persist for time immemorial.

Could you share an experience that has marked your career? 

On the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, I returned to a vista I had visited many times before. I expected the same sweeping expanse of ʻōhiʻa forest. Instead, the forest was deeply wounded. Hillsides that had once been textured with green and red flowers were now filled with the skeletons of dead. Their absence was as striking as the trees themselves. Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death had moved through the forest with devastating speed. ʻŌhiʻa is a keystone species, foundational to Hawaiian ecosystems and culture. Seeing so many mature trees lost at once was disorienting. It was not gradual decline. It was sudden and I was moved to tears.

A second experience unfolded more slowly on the cliffs of Mānoa Valley on Oʻahu. For the better part of a decade, I watched volunteers passionate about conservation restore an invaded forest along a trail I returned to year after year. What had once been nearly 100 percent non-native cover gradually became a thriving native habitat within a decade.

Holding those two experiences in mind has changed how I approach this work. I carry both that knowledge of fragility and possibility with me into every landscape I visit.

What advice would you give young scientists considering a career in plant biology?

Careers in plant biology rarely follow a straight path. Mine certainly did not. What made the difference for me was finding mentors and community at moments when I was unsure whether I belonged.

Early on, I assumed that if I worked hard enough, the science would speak for itself. Over time, I learned that science is built through relationships as much as through data and analysis. Introductions at meetings, conversations after talks, small gatherings of people who share parts of your identity or interests; Those are moments that matter.

In 2016, I came out publicly as queer in Science magazine after years of quietly wondering whether there was room for my full self-identity in academia. That decision did not hinder my career as I feared it would. Rather, it revealed to me who really mattered and bolstered connections with people I had already been working with. I realised how much easier it is to do good science collaboratively when you live your authentic self.

Follow the questions that genuinely move you. Be intentional about the community you build around you. The community you build will shape your career as much as your research does.

What do people usually get wrong about plants?

What many people get wrong about plants is the assumption that landscapes are stable. Forests can feel permanent. Habitats can seem as though they have always been there and always will be. In reality, plant communities are dynamic and sometimes ephemeral. I have watched forests transform within a single decade. I have seen a keystone tree species collapse across entire hillsides, and I have seen degraded habitats recover through sustained restoration. I have stood beside individuals of critically endangered species and watched them die, knowing fewer than fifty remained. I have also watched their last seeds collected and stored, an attempt to carry a lineage forward.

Plants are not fixed features of a landscape. They are living systems responding constantly to disturbance, climate, disease, and human decisions. What we often underestimate is how contingent their persistence is and how much our actions shape what remains.

On a hot summer day in Kew, one of the nicer places to cool off is, oddly, a greenhouse. The Davies Alpine House at Kew is designed to give alpine plants the dry, cool and breezy conditions that they thrive in. But this greenhouse wasn’t built as a pleasant refuge for tourists, it’s a critical conservation facility. Now, a paper by Marco Canella and colleagues, looking at Alpine Botanical Gardens in Europe in Plants People Planet shows how important this work is.

Canella and colleagues examined the work of 14 Alpine Botanical Gardens in France, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, and Switzerland. These gardens collectively grow 32% of the Alps' entire flora, nearly 1,900 species. What makes these collections important is that many of the species living in these gardens are missing from global seed banks. They have the supply of seeds and skills in propagating them to help fill these gaps.

Moreover, they’re skills that are needed because some alpine plants can't be conventionally seed-banked. For example, orchids need specific fungal partners, willow seeds are short-lived no matter what you do, and wildflowers like the glacier buttercup or the critically endangered Callianthemum kernerianum have complex dormancy requirements that mean they have to be kept as living seedbanks. Of the 81 endemic species that cultivated in the gardens, 30 are not found in any seed bank on the planet.

These plants are part of a complicated network of interactions in an ecosystem that is perhaps immeasurably valuable, though people are giving it a try. Botanical gardens are part of a conservation effort to help protect and reinforce these habitats. The authors note that the Giardino Botanico Alpino Viote is already linking their propagation work to real-world reintroductions.

These alpine plants aren’t isolated curiosities. Take something out of the ecosystem and this affects one or more pollinators, which can have unpredictable consequences further afield. However, work like this can aid conservation, helping plants survive in regions where warming is coming faster.

READ THE ARTICLE

Canella, M., Beltran‐Sanz, N., Gröger, A., Pungaršek, Š., Rome, M., Natale, S., Bonomi, C., Wiesinger, H., Mainetti, A., Scapin, A., Valecic, M., Sensato, S., Sommacal, M., Piutti, E., Bottelli, F., Pizzato, M., Senn, J., Monod, A., La Rocca, N., and Dal Grande, F. (2025) The role of Alpine botanical gardens in integrating germplasm bank collections and mission. PLANTS, PEOPLE, PLANET, 8(2), pp. 680-692. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.70120.

Cover image: Eryngium alpinum by fmunoz / iNaturalist CC BY-NC

Bombax ceiba is one of those trees that demands attention. Native across tropical and subtropical Asia, from India and southern China through to northern Australia, it can reach thirty metres or more. Its straight trunk is reinforced in youth by spines that deter animals from making a meal of its bark, and possibly to stop them from climbing the tree to feast on its flowers. In the dry season, the tree drops its leaves entirely. Then the bare grey branches erupt into flower. The blooms are large, fleshy, and range from orange to scarlet.

The flowers are built for big pollinators. Each bloom produces copious nectar, and the main visitors are birds and bats rather than insects. In parts of India, birds as big as blackbirds and mynas can crowd the flowering trees, while in Southeast Asia, fruit bats and flying foxes are important nocturnal pollinators. The flowers are robust enough to withstand rough handling, yet they only last a day. After pollination, the tree produces large capsules that split open to release seeds embedded in a mass of silky white fibres, giving the tree one of its common names: the red silk-cotton tree.

The kapok-like fibre has been used for centuries to stuff pillows, mattresses, and life jackets, though it has largely been displaced by synthetic materials. But Bombax ceiba's usefulness extends well beyond fibre.

It has been used as a famine food, and the gum that exudes from the bark, known as mocharas, has its own medicinal tradition. Other parts of the tree have their own uses in Ayurveda and Chinese medicine, making it a culturally important plant. It is the official flower of Guangzhou and in Hong Kong, old Bombax ceiba specimens are registered heritage trees.

Cover image: Bombax ceiba by Cathy Rogers / iNaturalist CC BY-NC