News by Subject Agriculture

Genetic differences between two very similar fungi, one that led to Quorn™, the proprietary meat substitute, and another that ranks among the world's most damaging crop pathogens, have exposed the significant features that dictate the pair's very different lifestyles, features that promise targets for controlling disease.

Plants are responding in unexpected ways to increased carbon dioxide in the air, according to a 20-year study conducted by researchers at the University of Minnesota.

Need stronger timber, better biofuels or new sources of green chemicals? A systems biology model developed over decades of research led by NC State University will accelerate progress in engineering trees for specific needs.

Advances in genome sequencing are providing vast amounts of genetic information that researchers are using to explore the plant family tree. This special issue showcases cutting-edge techniques that are providing solutions to challenges in the study of evolution of species (or phylogenetics); issue highlights include an overview of current options for phylogenomic studies, a new natural language processing pipeline, metagenomics pipeline comparisons, and reviews of sequence capture methods and custom pipelines for marker selection.

A large group of common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) have been spotted in Canadian Pacific waters -- the first confirmed occurrence of the species in this area. The sighting is reported in a study published in the open-access journal Marine Biodiversity Records.