A new wild ginger discovered from the evergreen forest of Western Ghats of South India

Intensive botanical explorations for taxonomic studies on the members of the ginger family (Zingiberaceae) in India by V.P. Thomas and M. Sabu of the University of Calicut, have resulted in the discovery of an interesting species of Amomum (Cardamom) from Silent Valley National Park on the Western Ghats of Kerala.

The ginger family consists of 53 genera and over 1,200 species, many of which are widely used as spices, for medical purposes, or simply for decoration. Amomum Roxb. is the second largest genus within the Zingiberaceae, comprising about 150-180 species, including several types of cardamom. Widely distributed in Southeast Asia, the genus is represented by 23 species in India, mostly restricted to North-East India, South India and the Andaman-Nicobar Islands.

In the new species, the authors show some similarities with A. masticatorium, although the two are clearly distinct. The new plant's name refers to its locality, i.e. Nilgiri hills, a part of Western Ghats and one of the hotspots of the Indian subcontinent. The most notable feature of the plant is the presence of long ligules that reach up to 9 cm long and small flowers with a long corolla tube. Almost all parts of the plant are hairy.

It is a high altitude species (found above 1,200 m), and attempts to conserve it outside its natural locality were unsuccessful. The conservation status evaluation revealed that it falls under the critically endangered category of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, 2001. Conservation measures are to be carried out very urgently to recover the plant from extinction.


riginal source:
Thomas VP, Sabu M, Prabhu Kumar KM (2012) Amomum nilgiricum (Zingiberaceae), a new species from Western Ghats, India. PhytoKeys 8: 99-104. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.8.2152
Additional information:
From the 1st of January 2012, PhytoKeys is publishing each paper separately, on the day it is approved by the editors. The article by Prof Sabu is the closing one for the 8th issue of the journal, making it complete.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/pp-anw010512.php

New plant found in Perth

Plant species discovery Perth's most significant in six years

A NEW plant species has been discovered by West Australian scientists in the Perth suburb of Kenwick.


Described as the most significant botanical find in the Perth metropolitan area since 2005, Ptilotus christineae was discovered late last year by botanical consultant Cate Tauss while working on behalf of the V&C Semeniuk Research Group.

Western Australian Herbarium director Dr Kevin Thiele says the species is one of the rarest in its genus.

“It’s currently known from only one locality and differs from other species in details of its habitat and flowers,” he says

“Most other species of Ptilotus grow in arid parts of WA such as the Pilbara, although there are a number around Perth and the south west.”

Ms Tauss found the new species while surveying a variety of habitats near Kenwick’s Brixton Street wetlands.

“These are important—and now very rare—clay-based wetlands on the Swan Coastal Plain and contain a number of rare and localised species,” Dr Thiele says.

“Whenever plant surveys are conducted in WA there’s always a chance of finding something new or rare, so in that sense Cate was on the lookout… But the actual discovery of the new species was serendipity.”

Botanists working at or in association with the WA Herbarium discover and name about 30 to 50 new species of plants, algae and fungi every year.

Dr Thiele says this is one of the highest rates of discovery in the world, highlighting the extraordinary richness of WA’s biodiversity and the expertise of the botanists studying it.

“Perth is built on the Swan Coastal Plain which is a region with extraordinarily high native plant richness in global terms.The region has been relatively well-explored by botanists for more than 200 years but new species still occasionally turn up in the Perth region,” he says.

“Ptilotus christineae is only known from one small population in Kenwick and its area of occupancy is less than 0.2 ha.

“It’s unlikely more populations will be found because most of its wetland habitat has been lost to urban development.”

Ptilotus christineae was named in recognition of scientist Christine Semeniuk’s contribution to the study of wetland environments across the State.

The species faces multiple threats including the immediate threat of illegal off-road vehicle traffic through the bushland every weekend, which Dr Thiele says could be stopped by more adequate fencing.

“Climate change, industrial development and inappropriate water management in the local catchment are probably the most serious threats in the medium and long term,” he says.

Details of the new species have been published in the scientific journal Nuytsia.


http://www.sciencewa.net.au/3782-plant-species-discovery-perths-most-significant-in-six-years.html

Satellite spies vast algal bloom in Baltic Sea

A satellite image has revealed the scale of a vast algal bloom spreading in the Baltic Sea.

The potentially toxic bloom, covering 377,000 sq km, could pose a risk to marine life in the region, warn scientists.

They added that a lack of wind and prolonged high temperatures had triggered the largest bloom since 2005.

The affected area stretches from Finland in the north to parts of Germany and Poland in the south.

The image, captured earlier this month, was recorded by a camera on the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite.

Researchers monitoring the spread of the blue-green algae said such blooms had spread over the Baltic Sea each summer for decades.

They added that fertilizers from surrounding agricultural land were being washed into the sea and exacerbating the problem.

This has led to a process called eutrophication, in which the additional nutrients stimulate rapid growth of phytoplankton - microscopic free-floating marine plants.

This accelerated growth also reduces the amount of oxygen available to other plant and animal species in the affected area; raising fears that it could destabilise fragile marine ecosystems.

As well threatening certain species, blue-green algae can also pose a risk to human health, and officials are advising people not to bathe in areas where the algae is visible.

However, researchers said the current bloom would quickly break up with the arrival of strong winds, as the resulting waves would disperse the algae.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10740097

Plants 'can think and remember'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10598926
Plants 'can think and remember'[photos]

Plants are able to "remember" and "react" to information contained in light, according to researchers.

Plants, scientists say, transmit information about light intensity and quality from leaf to leaf in a very similar way to our own nervous systems. These "electro-chemical signals" are carried by cells that act as "nerves" of the plants. In their experiment, the scientists showed that light shone on to one leaf caused the whole plant to respond.

And the response, which took the form of light-induced chemical reactions in the leaves, continued in the dark. This showed, they said, that the plant "remembered" the information encoded in light. "We shone the light only on the bottom of the plant and we observed changes in the upper part," explained Professor Stanislaw Karpinski from the Warsaw University of Life Sciences in Poland, who led this research.

He presented the findings at the Society for Experimental Biology's annual meeting in Prague, Czech Republic. "And the changes proceeded when the light was off... This was a complete surprise." In previous work, Professor Karpinski found that chemical signals could be passed throughout whole plants - allowing them to respond to and survive changes and stresses in their environment.

But in this new study, he and his colleagues discovered that when light stimulated a chemical reaction in one leaf cell, this caused a "cascade" of events and that this was immediately signalled to the rest of the plant by via specific type of cell called a "bundle sheath cell". The scientists measured the electrical signals from these cells, which are present in every leaf. They likened the discovery to finding the plants' "nervous system".

Thinking plants
What was even more peculiar, Professor Karpinski said, was that the plants' responses changed depending on the colour of the light that was being shone on them. "There were characteristic [changes] for red, blue and white light," he explained.

He suspected that the plants might use the information encoded in the light to stimulate protective chemical reactions. He and his colleagues examined this more closely by looking at the effect of different colours of light on the plants' immunity to disease.

"When we shone the light for on the plant for one hour and then infected it [with a virus or with bacteria] 24 hours after that light exposure, it resisted the infection," he explained. "But when we infected the plant before shining the light, it could not build up resistance. "[So the plant] has a specific memory for the light which builds its immunity against pathogens, and it can adjust to varying light conditions."

He said that plants used information encrypted in the light to immunise themselves against seasonal pathogens.
"Every day or week of the season has. a characteristic light quality," Professor Karpinski explained. "So the plants perform a sort of biological light computation, using information contained in the light to immunise themselves against diseases that are prevalent during that season."

Professor Christine Foyer, a plant scientist from the University of Leeds, said the study "took our thinking one step forward. Plants have to survive stresses, such as drought or cold, and live through it and keep growing," she told BBC News.

"This requires an appraisal of the situation and an appropriate response - that's a form of intelligence. What this study has done is link two signalling pathways together... and the electrical signalling pathway is incredibly rapid, so the whole plant could respond immediately to high [levels of] light."

Plants Demonstrate Complex Ability to Integrate Information

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100624144057.htm

Behavior Breakthrough: Like Animals, Plants Demonstrate Complex Ability to
Integrate Information

ScienceDaily (June 25, 2010) - A University of Alberta research team has discovered that a plant's strategy to capture nutrients in the soil is the result of integration of different types of information. U of A ecologist J.C. Cahill says the plant's strategy mirrors the daily risk-versus-reward dilemmas that animals experience in their quest for food.

Biologists established long ago that an animal uses information about both the location of a food supply and potential competitors to determine an optimal foraging strategy. Its subsequent behavioral response is based on whether the food supply is rich enough to accept the risks associated with engaging in competition with other animals.

Cahill found plants also have the ability to integrate information about the location of both food and competitors. As a result, plants demonstrate unique behavioural strategies to capture soil resources. Previous studies show plants alter the growth of their roots in relation to the
placement of food or a competing plant. Cahill and his colleagues now show an integration of both location and competition information in plants. "This ability to integrate information is a level of complexity never seen in plants before," said Cahill. "This is something we assumed only happened with animals."

Using a mini-rhizotron camera, referred to by Cahill's team as a "camera on a stick," the researchers compared the root movement of potted plants in relation to various positions of nutrients and competing plants. The roots of one plant in a pot where nutrients were evenly distributed occupied the entire breadth of the soil.

When two plants occupied a single pot and the nutrients were evenly distributed, the roots stopped growing laterally towards each other. There was complete segregation of the root systems; the plants avoided contact with one another. Cahill says in terms of risk versus reward, the plants avoided each other because the rewards were low.

But when nutrients were placed between two plants sharing a single pot, both plants grew their roots much closer towards each other. Cahill says in this case the rewards were high, and the plants risked increased competition.

Experts rediscover plant presumed extinct for 60 years

Experts rediscover plant presumed extinct for 60 years

By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News
24 June 2010

In a small, noisy laboratory, tucked away in London's Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, a tiny plant is growing.

It looks just like a very small parsley bush, but it is actually a very special little plant indeed.

Clean air has to be constantly circulated in the lab to protect it from any bacteria.

This precious specimen is the Anogramma ascensionis fern, commonly known as the parsley fern. Since the 1950s, botanists believed it to be extinct.

It is native to Ascension - an island in the South Atlantic, which is one of Britain's overseas territories. And a small project supported by Kew's overseas territories programme has rediscovered and rescued it - a timely success story, as this year has been dubbed International Year of Biodiversity.

Kew botanist Phil Lamden and local conservation officer Stedson Stroud found the plucky little plant clinging to a precarious existence on a mountainside in the harsh volcanic landscape.

"We were down the back of Ascension's Green Mountain, which has very, very steep slopes. You have to be really careful because if you slip you're a goner," Mr Stroud recalled.

"And we came across this beautiful little fern and immediately knew it was the lost Anogramma that had been extinct for the last 60 years."

Ascension is covered by bleak, forbidding lava flows, and only 10 plant species are known to be truly "endemic" - found nowhere else in the world.

According to Kew scientists, goats that were released on to Ascension by Portuguese explorers in the 1500s, ate their way voraciously through the island's greenery for 350 years before any of the flora was even described to science.

The introduction of more invasive herbivores - rabbits, sheep, rats and donkeys, together with over 200 species of invasive plants, further squeezed out the island's original plant inhabitants. The rediscovery of Anogramma boosts to seven the number of surviving endemic plant species on the island.

Mr Stroud said that, in the excitement, both of the researchers "forgot where they were".

"We were scrambling around, looking to see if there were more, and then we realised, we should really have safety ropes and stuff around us," he said.

24-hour rescue

There were more plants - four in total. But as far as the researchers knew, these were all that remained of Anogramma. So with the help of his colleague, Olivia Renshaw, Mr Stroud mounted a rather perilous effort to protect them.

"We had to keep the plants alive - they were on a bare rock face and it was a really dry period, so Olivia and I went down twice a week carrying water and we set up a drip feed," said Stedson.

After a few weeks of tending the plants, the next part of their plan was even more risky. They had to get pieces of the ferns back to Kew so that more plants could be grown in the safety and sterility of the lab.

Stedson climbed down the ridge one again - this time to collect a few small cuttings of the spore-forming or reproductive parts of the plants.

Once harvested, the spores were vulnerable to drying and contamination, and the team had just 24 hours to transfer the precious cargo to the laboratory in Kew's Conservation Biotechnology Unit (CBU).

The samples were placed in a sterile container and rushed to the nearby airfield. From there, they were flown to a military airport in the UK, where a car was waiting to race them to Kew. Fortunately, the dust-like fern spores survived the journey intact.

Dr Viswambharan Sarasan is head of the CBU. He explained that their arrival was not the end of the challenge.

The spores had to be bleached to eliminate any bacteria, before the plants could be grown in culture.

"That is the really risky part," he said. "If you bleach them for too long, you could kill the spores, but if you don't treat them for long enough, there could be remaining bacteria that will grow in culture and kill them."

And Dr Sarasan had only a one-pence-piece-sized clipping of fern to work with - the smallest sample he had ever cultured from.

After another nervous period of waiting, he was relieved to discover that the process had left the spores intact and viable.

He and his colleague Katie Baker, a botany undergraduate student working at Kew, have now succeeded in growing 60 new Anogramma plants in culture - all from four tiny plants on a cliff face in Ascension.

The team hope eventually to restore Anogramma to its former wild habitats on Ascension's Green Mountain.

And Mr Stroud has even managed to grow some of the plants in a shade house on the island itself.

"Each and every day, you're there, tending and looking, and hoping that something will happen," he said.

"Then one day you see something and - watching the plants grow - you can't ask for anything more."
Anagramma fern growing in culture Kew scientists have successfully grown more than 60 Anogramma plants

Colin Clubbe, who leads the UK overseas territories programme at Kew, says that this rescue effort was a small but vital part of a much wider goal to protect native plants in Britain's overseas territories before they are lost forever.

Plants are such an important component of our lives," he said. "And if we lose them, we lose them - extinction is forever.

He says that "holding on to our natural environment" could help us protect many of the plants we depend on.

"We do exploit species - we're reliant on plant products. We use them as a source of genes and, in these extremely dry habitats, like Ascension, plants that are naturally adapted may hold some answers to things like plants' responses to climate change."

This is actually the third extinct plant that Mr Stroud has rediscovered and, for him, it is an ongoing and very personal mission.

"There's never a time that I'm not actually looking for these species because, we say they're extinct, but I believe they are there," he said.

"It's so satisfying, bringing a plant back from the brink of extinction."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10402534.stm

Plants 'talk' to warn each other of threats

Plants can "talk" to each other to warn their neighbours of potential threats, scientists believe.

Two decades after the Prince of Wales invited derision by saying that plants respond to human speech, a study has shown that their communication skills are much more advanced than previously thought.

Chemical messages exchanged between plants allow them to send out alerts when pests attack and even discuss the presence of pollinators such as bees, the research indicates.

In tests, sagebrush shrubs had their leaves "clipped" as if they were being eaten by grasshoppers or other herbivores.

Other sagebrush plants growing near the clipped shrubs proved more resilient than control plants without damaged neighbours, indicating that they had received warning of the threat.
"Plants not only respond to reliable cues in their environments but also produce cues that communicate with other plants and with other organisms," said Richard Karban of the University of California, who coauthored the study with Kaori Shiojiri of Kyoto University.

The research, which is published in the journal Ecology Letters, showed that plants are "capable of more sophisticated behaviour than we imagined," Prof Karban added.

The Prince of Wales was widely mocked by gardeners for saying that it was "very important" to talk to plants, but a recent study by the Royal Horticultural Society found that tomato plants do respond to the human voice.


By Matthew Moore
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/5595619/Plants-talk-to-warn-each-other-of-threats.html

Small blue butterfly restoration project

A major project is underway to help save one of Britain's rarest butterflies.

Britain's smallest butterfly, the Small Blue is in drastic decline due to the loss of its chalk and limestone grassland habitat. Warwickshire (and the West Midlands) now only hang on to this beautiful butterfly at 3 sites around Southam, all of which are active or former quarries. Butterfly Conservation launched its Bringing Back the Small Blue project at Southam Quarry on Thursday 18th June.

The project aims to restore habitat for the Small Blue butterfly at 15 local sites in an area containing some of the richest habitat in the West Midlands for butterflies and other insects. The project aims to restore flower-rich grassland, where the Small Blue caterpillar will be able to thrive on Kidney Vetch plants.

Dingy Skipper and Grizzled Skippers

Project work started in March with 3.5 hectares of scrub being cleared on 4 sites. At Southam Quarry the flora has already started to recover and good numbers of rare Dingy Skipper and Grizzled Skippers have been found using the newly cleared areas. Plants already reappearing include violets and Common Spotted Orchids. Two thousand Kidney Vetch plants have also been planted to provide egg laying sites for any prospective Small Blue.

Martin Warren, Chief Executive of Butterfly Conservation the national charity for conserving butterflies and moths said "I am really excited about this project. There a signs that we could start to see increases in Small Blue numbers and other rare butterflies and moths in a relatively short space of time, which is fantastic news. These creatures need all the help they can get as sites are being lost to development, unsuitable restoration or simply neglect. The project is already attracting help from local volunteers and helping to develop their conservation skills, which is great for the future of the local environment. This project is just one of 76 landscape scale partnership projects that Butterfly Conservation is involved in across the UK."

Other rare insects to get boost

As well as the Small Blue, the three year programme of restoration works will also help many other rare insects including butterflies such as the Dingy and Grizzled Skippers well as the Chalk Carpet moth, bumblebees and the dotted bee-fly.

The three year project has major funding from SITA Trust, the Stratford Community Fund, Network Rail and Cemex, with many smaller contributions from local companies and Parish Councils.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/small-blue.html