Category: BryologyPage 1 of 5
Studies in evolution, ecology and conservation of mosses, liverworts and hornworts at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
Despite a reputation for being rather a rare breed, this week, purely by chance, we have found ourselves with an embarrassment of bryologists at the Gardens. As well…
The following blog posts on moss evolution are written by Diego Sánchez-Ganfornina (early career researcher).Migrations, extinctions, rainforests and climate change: the pressures and situations that led tree mosses…
The following blog posts on moss evolution are written by Diego Sánchez-Ganfornina (early career researcher).Migrations, extinctions, rainforests and climate change: the pressures and situations that led tree mosses…
The following blog posts on moss evolution are written by Diego Sánchez-Ganfornina (early career researcher).Migrations, extinctions, rainforests and climate change: the pressures and situations that led tree mosses…
It seems that not only are the North American Aneura sharpii, the east Asian Aneura pellioides and the south-east Asian Aneura maxima all distinct species, but there are also two Pellia-like Aneura species in Europe.
We have chosen a lectoype for Riccardia fuscovirens Lindb. (i.e., a type specimen that is chosen after a name has been published, but from the original specimens or illustrations that the author of the name would have been influenced by when they were first recognizing the taxon)
The thalloid liverwort Aneura pinguis (L.) Dumort. (basionym Jungermannia pinguis L.) has been reported from a bewildering range of climates and habitats, from neotropical cloud forests to Scottish…
The simple thalloid liverwort Aneura has become a flagship genus for DNA barcoding at RBGE. Only a single widespread species, Aneura pinguis, is traditionally recognized in the UK,…
A recently described moss, Sphagnum divinum, the Divine Bog-moss, has been discovered in Britain and Ireland, though the only Scottish site yet found has sadly been lost. Its taxonomic discovery has a long history, starting over 250 years ago with a French explorer in southern South America.
Geography, and particularly climate, have distinguished the extreme western parts of Scotland from the rest of the country for thousands of years. Many of our rarest plant species…
Even with a plant as common, and as commonly overlooked, as this pollution-tolerant urban bryophyte, there is still genetic diversity to explore and explain.
When conservation scientists are trying to decide which species are most in need of protection, the main consideration is usually how likely they are to become extinct, as…
Following on from the rather unpredictable results we obtained from fragmenting duplicate aliquots of CTAB-extracted Polytrichum DNA in the Bioruptor, Isuru cleaned aliquots of IK31 and IK53 using…
We started our lab work on the Polytrichum hybrid baits project on the 1st of October, by normalising some CTAB-extracted DNA with 0.1X TE to 55 µL of…
The current Next Gen Sequencing lab project at the Botanics involves looking at the phylogeny of Polytrichum section Polytrichum, using hybrid capture. Polytrichum commune, photographed by David Bell…
There’s an exciting project, The 10KP (10,000 Plants) Genome Sequencing Project, that aims to sequence and characterize representative genomes from every major clade of embryophytes, green algae, and…
I spotted this unusual fern on a shipment that had come to Vannucci from Japan. The 8-20cm long plants were clinging to the trunk and underside of branches…
The leafy liverwort genus Nardia has five species that are known to occur in Scotland. Of these five species that occur in Scotland, four are described in Smith’s…
Dr Des Callaghan spends rather a lot of his time chasing after rare things. He’s an environmental consultant with many strings to his bow, but a particular specialisation…
Life gets littered with untold stories; here’s one that did get told, briefly, and then got forgotten. It was told at the Botany meeting in Austin in August…
Four years ago, we took an overnight trip to one of the four gardens of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh: Benmore, in Argyll (Sunday 2nd – Monday 3rd February…