News
Nature publication Bob Douma
Bob Douma is one of the authors of a new publication in Nature entitled 'Low investment in sexual reproduction threatens plants adapted to phosphorus limitation'.
The authors discovered that plants that are able to survive in low-phosphorus soils invest little in sexual reproduction. They flower in a short period of time or they do not produce many seeds. That is a useful adaptation in those conditions, as sexual reproductive organs require lots of phosphorus. This adaptation makes these plant species extra vulnerable, since phosphorus-poor ecosystems are becoming scarcer and more scattered. These species produce so few seeds that they have difficulty spreading out across large distances. This means they are essentially trapped in the few low-phosphorus areas that are still around. In order to prevent them from going extinct, we need to take urgent measures.
See also this news item at the Wageningen UR website
Read the publication in Nature