Recently, Jianqiang Wu Group at the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Kunming, China revealed that dodder can transmit salt-induced systemic signaling between different host plants. They found that when one host was treated with salt solution, mobile systemic signals were produced and transmitted through dodder bridges, reaching another host, and this […]
A new project entitled “Striga Smart Sorghum Solutions for Smallholders in East Africa” funded through a GCRF – Royal Society Society, International Collaboration award, started in December 2019. This is a collaboration between Dr Jonne Rodenburg of NRI, University of Greenwich (UK) and Dr Steven Runo of Kenyatta University (Kenya). The project aims to combine […]
The Witcher series is a Polish and literary phenomenon written by Andrzej Sapkowski. Here’s a little background; a Striga, from what we know, is a woman that’s been cursed to transform into a horrid creature at night. Want to read more? See Haustorium 77, available in the Member area. […]
Viscum album, the only native British mistletoe, is rich in associated folklore, and commercially important for the Christmas markets and its medicinal uses. Like all mistletoes, it is a hemiparasite, photosynthetic, and attached only to the host xylem, initial contact with which stimulates hypertrophy of the host tissue. It is hence a gallcauser, inducing variable […]
Kakamega Forest Senior Manager George Aimo said the dodder plant is a major threat to trees and crops. When Samuel Onyango, a smallholder farmer from Kisumu County, first noticed yellowish spaghetti-like leafless vines hanging loosely on his fence some three years ago, he did not bother about them. Little did he know that it was […]
My research centers around the causes and consequences of heterotrophy in plants. Specifically, the goal of my work is to understand the eco-evolutionary and functional-genomic bases of organismal interaction between parasitic plants and their environment. My group prioritizes research on ecological and molecular adaptations associated with parasitism to obtain fundamental insights into the course of […]
My research in parasitic plant biology encompasses the broad diversity of these plants, from mistletoes, to the cryptic Rafflesiaceae, and the widely known Cuscuta. Using a variety of methods, from plant morphology and physiology, to phylogenetic analyses, I investigate haustorium development and evolution across the different clades among which parasitic plants have evolved. I’m also interested […]
Link to paper By: Nathan R Johnson, Claude W dePamphilis, Michael J Axtell Trans-species small regulatory RNAs (sRNAs) are delivered to host plants from diverse pathogens and parasites and can target host mRNAs. How trans-species sRNAs can be effective on diverse hosts has been unclear. Multiple species of the parasitic plant Cuscuta produce trans-species sRNAs that collectively target many […]
Link to paper by: Mounia Ennami, Joseph Mbasani-mansi, Fatima Zahra Briache, Nada Oussible, Fatima Gaboun, Lamiae Ghaouti, Loubna Belqadi, Michel Edmond Ghanem, Kamal Aberkani, James Westwood, Rachid Mentag Orobanche infections reduce biomass of hosts at the first stages of infection on both contrasting faba bean cultivars. It is likely that plant growth-defense tradeoffs have a […]
Parasitic plants can connect to the vasculature of a host plant from which they take part or all of the water, nutrients, and assimilates they need to complete their life cycle. This parasitic lifestyle required that these parasitic plants evolved host detection, host attachment, host exploitation, and host defense suppression strategies. The elucidation of these […]