Category: Research
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How sunlight influences species diversity in grasslands
The factors that determine plant species diversity in grasslands is still being explored. Some of the factors commonly cited include atmospheric nitrogen deposition and climate. A new study indicates that photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) might be another major determinant of species diversity in a grassland environment. Previous studies have shown that photosynthesis is positively correlated…
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How grasses supercharged energy storage via a unique starch biosynthetic pathway
Plants produce glucose using carbon dioxide and water from the environment. This glucose is then used to power cell metabolism and keep plants alive. However, glucose is an osmotically active material, and is hard to store, so plants link together glucose molecules to form a carbohydrate called starch. Starch is compact and insoluble, and is…
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The assault resumes: rapid expansion of an invasive grass in Florida
I was in the area, and decided to visit an old site in Kissimmee, FL where I had been reporting the expansion of a large cluster of Imperata cylindrica (cogon grass) since Spring 2021. During the last visit, the cogon grass had managed to go around a large tree blocking its way, and I wanted…
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Defining Grasses: The Amazing Awns of Grasses
If one were in the habit of identifying grasses, then the presence of visible and distinctive structures on the spikelets would be one way to ease the pain of such an endeavor. Fortunately, many grasses have long projections from these reproductive structures that go a long way towards helping the observer. These so-called awns are…
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The Rebel Grassland Scientists of Madagascar
Note: Images from video by grasstube below. Awhile back we touched on grassland research in Madagascar, where entrenched colonial mindsets in the local government and populace has threatened the existence of extant grasslands in the country’s interior highlands and western parts. As in many tropical areas, people have the idea that grasslands are only secondary…
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Temperate Bamboo’s War on Forest Trees
In a previous post we found out how Guadua tropical bamboos carve out their territories and spread against trees by physically damaging them using heavy water-filled culms. These tropical bamboos have pachymorph (or sympodial) rhizomes that are relatively short, and thus are so-called “clumping” types that only expand slowly. But in temperate areas, researchers found…
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How grasses created traditional gender roles in human societies
In a post last year, we looked at how grasses shaped human evolution, which included changing the shape of our skulls and perhaps even the color of our skin. But the tight partnership between people and grains that started with the advent of agriculture, affected many things beyond just the human phenotype. There have been…
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Breaking the Blockade
I’ve been doing a long running observation on a stand of Imperata cylindrica (Cogon grass) in Florida since 2021, with the cogon grass rapidly overwhelming its competitors as it spread laterally along a roadside. For a history of this series of observations (oldest to most recent): April 2021Rapid expansion of an invasive grass as viewed…
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Biological Nitrogen-Fixation in Grasses!
Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plants. But while the element makes up 78% of the atmosphere as diNitrogen (N2), this form is unavailable to plants. The solution to this problem is nitrogen fixation, which involves the conversion of this atmospheric nitrogen into forms such as ammonia (NH3) that are available and useful to organisms.…
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Will the grass family go extinct?
The Poaceae have existed on earth for about a hundred million years. In phylogeny, the stem age of a clade refers to the time when a group first splits from its sister lineage, and thus is considered the origin point of that group. In the case of grasses, one paper posits that this would have…