Do potatoes grow on vines? A review of the wild relatives of some favorite food plants

A new extensive study offers a complete revision and a new species from the vining Solanum species (the Dulcamaroid clade)

2013-05-14

(Press-News.org) The Solanaceae, also called the potato or nightshade family, includes a wide range of flowering plants, some of which are important agricultural crops. Tomatoes, potatoes, aubergines, peppers and wolfberries are all representatives of the family present on many tables across the world. Solanum is the largest genus of the family, and with 1500 species, is one of the largest genera of flowering plants. Solanum has 13 major evolutionary groups,or clades. This new study published in the open access journal Phytokeys offers a complete revision of all of the species of the Dulcamaroid clade, including the description of a new species endemic to the forests of Ecuador.

The species-rich genus Solanum has remained remarkably underexplored until relatively recently, despite the economic importance of some of its members such as potato (Solanum tuberosum) and tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) . A project funded by the United States National Science Foundation's Planetary Biodiversity Inventory program begun in 2004 sought to redress this situation by attempting to accelerate species-level taxonomy and at the same time prove a robust genetic background to the research. This research is a part of this effort, providing a revision of all the species of an entire clade of Solanum. Extensive and detailed, this study follows historical and taxonomic changes within the Dulcamaroid clade to provide detailed and very importantly community shared summary. Publication in PhytoKeys means the data from the in-depth taxonomic work will be shared with a wide audience who can re-use the data for further work with these plants.

"Work by participants of the 'PBI Solanum' project will result in a modern monographic treatment of the entire genus available on-line. This treatment is part of this collaborative effort."explains Dr. Sandra Knapp, the author of this extensive contribution.

Members of the Dulcamaroid clade are all woody plants and vary in appearance from shrubs to vines. Some are large canopy lianas, while other vining species are woody only at the base. All representatives have beautiful clusters of flowers varying in color from deep purple, through fuchsia and pale pink, to pure white. Species in the group are native to both the New and Old Worlds - with the highest species diversity in Argentina and Peru. Among the species included in this revision is the common European woody nightshade, Solanum dulcamara, distributed all over the northern hemisphere and having a long history of medicinal use.

The new species described in this revision, Solanum agnoston, discovered by Dr. Sandra Knapp, Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, UK, comes from the inter Andean valleys of Southern Ecuador and is only known from two collections. Many of the other species of the group are similarly rare - of the 45 species 14 are threatened or endangered. Two of the most well-known decorative representatives of the group featured in the study are S. crispum, also known as Chilean potato vine or Chilean nightshade, and S. laxum, commonly called potato climber or jasmine nightshade. Both of these species are native to South America - S. crispum from Chile and S. laxum from southern Brazil and Argentina - but are today cultivated all over the world.

INFORMATION:

Original Source:

Knapp S (2013) A revision of the Dulcamaroid Clade of Solanum L. (Solanaceae). PhytoKeys 22: 1, doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.22.4041

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

IT industry ignores silver surfers at its peril

2013-05-14

Hardware and software vendors are foolish to ignore the needs of the growing population of older computer and information technology users, the so-called "silver surfers". US researchers offer convincing evidence in a monograph to be published in the International Journal of Intercultural Information Management that from the business perspective, seniors represent a rapidly growing sector of the market with the most disposable income to spend on these companies' products. Mark McMurtrey, Ronald McGaughey, James Downey and Steven Zeltmann of the Department of Management ...

Fish oil may stall effects of junk food on brain

2013-05-14

Data from more than 180 research papers suggests fish oils could minimise the effects that junk food can have on the brain, a review by researchers at the University of Liverpool has shown. The team at the University's Institute of Ageing and Chronic Disease reviewed research from around the world to see whether there was sufficient data available to suggest that omega-3s had a role to play in aiding weight loss. Research over the past 10 years has indicated that high-fat diets could disrupt neurogenesis, a process that generates new nerve cells, but diets rich in omega-3s ...

Sulfate aerosols cool climate less than assumed

2013-05-14

This news release is available in German. In their role as condensation nuclei, aerosol particles are an important trigger for the formation of clouds. As humidity accumulates on the particles droplets are formed, which later develop into clouds. Within the clouds, however, the chemical composition of these aerosol particles changes. In order to find out exactly what happens within the clouds, Eliza Harris and Bärbel Sinha from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, together with other scientists form Mainz and further research institutes, investigated different ...

But what does it do?

2013-05-14

Although we know the tool's general purpose, it can sometimes be difficult to tell if a specific pair of precision tweezers belongs to a surgeon or a master jeweller. It is now easier to solve similar conundrums about a type of protein that allows cells to react to their environment, thanks to scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). Published today in Science Signaling, their work offers a valuable resource for other researchers. Whether in your eye being hit by light, in your blood fighting off disease, or elsewhere throughout your body, cells ...

Cooling ocean temperature could buy more time for coral reefs

2013-05-14

Limiting the amount of warming experienced by the world's oceans in the future could buy some time for tropical coral reefs, say researchers from the University of Bristol. The study, published by the journal Geophysical Research Letters, used computer models to investigate how shallow-water tropical coral reef habitats may respond to climate change over the coming decades. Elena Couce and colleagues found that restricting greenhouse warming to three watts per square metre (equivalent to just 50-100 parts per million carbon dioxide, or approximately half again the increase ...

New software spots, isolates cyber-attacks to protect networked control systems

2013-05-14

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a software algorithm that detects and isolates cyber-attacks on networked control systems – which are used to coordinate transportation, power and other infrastructure across the United States. Networked control systems are essentially pathways that connect and coordinate activities between computers and physical devices. For example, the systems that connect temperature sensors, heating systems and user controls in modern buildings are networked control systems. But, on a much larger scale, these systems ...

When green means danger: A stunning new species of palm-pitviper from Honduras

2013-05-14

A new species of green palm-pitviper of the genus Bothriechis is described from a seriously threatened cloud forest reserve in northern Honduras. Because of similarity in color pattern and scalation, the new species (Bothriechis guifarroi) was previously confused with other Honduran palm pitvipers. Genetic analysis revealed that the closest relatives of the new species are actually found over 600 km to the south, in the mountains of Costa Rica. The study was published in the open access journal Zookeys. The gorgeous new species was discovered by scientists during two ...

CWRU researcher searches for global views of nurses' end-of-life care for patients

2013-05-14

Nurses will use extreme measures to save their patients and parents; but if they were dying, they prefer less aggressive ones for themselves, according to results from an international survey on nurses' end-of-life preferences. The April issue of the International Nursing Review reported the findings about the end-of-life preferences of 1,089 nurses in the first multinational and cross-cultural view of nurses' end-of-life care choices. Two factors influenced the care of people dying: lack of knowledge about the patient's wishes and the call of duty, according to Joyce ...

Bacterium counteracts 'coffee ring effect'

2013-05-14

Ever notice how a dried coffee stain has a thicker outer rim, while the middle of the stain remains almost unsoiled? This 'coffee ring effect' also occurs in other materials. Researchers from the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at KU Leuven have now discovered how to counteract coffee rings with 'surfactants', i.e. soap. The key to the discovery was not a kitchen towel, but a bacterium that counteracts the coffee ring effect at the microscopic level. The findings were published in a recent edition of the leading journal Nature Communications. When a ...

Crop rotation with nematode-resistant wheat can protect tomatoes

2013-05-14

In a study published online today in Crop Science, scientists describe a nematode-resistant wheat. But while the wheat carries the resistance to the pest, the benefits are actually seen in the crop that is grown after it. Root-knot nematodes cause crop losses around the world, and they can be difficult to control. In order to reproduce, nematodes need to infect a living plant root. Once they are present in soil, they can survive winter in a fallow field and infect plants during the next growing season. Trap crops – unsuitable hosts that "trick" the nematodes into starting ...

Do potatoes grow on vines? A review of the wild relatives of some favorite food plants

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: