Science & Technology

Biologist Rachel Penczykowski in Arts & Sciences conducted a series of elegant experiments that capture how pathogen strains naturally accumulate on plants over a growing season. Her findings, reported in Nature Ecology & Evolution, reveal the importance of understanding interactions among pathogens when developing strategies for maintaining healthy crop populations.

Carlos Botero, assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, finds that parasitic birds living in more variable and unpredictable habitats tend to hedge their bets by laying eggs in the nests of a greater variety and number of hosts. The study is published Aug. 21 in Nature Communications.

African fish called mormyrids communicate using pulses of electricity. New research from biologists in Arts & Sciences shows that a time-shifted signal in the brain helps the fish to ignore their own pulse. This skill has co-evolved with large and rapid changes in these signals across species.

New research from Washington University in St. Louis offers clues about how mechanosensitive ion channels in the plant’s cells respond to swelling by inducing cell death — potentially to protect the rest of the plant.  

The Dixit lab at Washington University in St. Louis, which in a study published in 2018 found molecular brakemen that keep the Arabidopsis Fragile Fiber 1 (FRA1) motor protein in check, uncovered in continuing research that FRA1 cinches its track in place through cellulose synthase-microtubule uncoupling proteins.

A study by biologist Amanda Koltz in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis suggests that as female wolf spiders become larger and produce more offspring, competition among them increases — triggering higher rates of cannibalism and reducing the number of young spiders that survive to adulthood.

A new study from Washington University in St. Louis is the first to demonstrate evolutionary response to hurricanes on a wide geographic scale.

Weedy rice is a feral form of rice that infests paddies worldwide and aggressively outcompetes cultivated varieties. A new study led by biologists at Washington University in St. Louis shows that weed populations have evolved multiple times from cultivated rice, and a strikingly high proportion of contemporary Asian weed strains can be traced to a few Green Revolution cultivars that were widely grown in the late 20th century.

Faced with a gritty landscape of metal fences, concrete walls and asphalt pavement, lizards that moved into cities in Puerto Rico rapidly and repeatedly evolved better tolerance for heat than their forest counterparts, according to new research from Washington University in St. Louis and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Weedy rice — or rice gone rogue — costs U.S. farmers more than $45 million annually. A team led by Washington University in St. Louis will characterize the genetic basis and origins of the traits that allow weedy rice to invade rice fields, reduce yields and contaminate harvests.