Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · 17/06/2026www.sciencenews.org/article/chin...sciencenews.orgChinese money plant leaves hide a mathematical patternTiny water-secreting pores appear to organize the major veins of the plant leaves into an arrangement known as a Voronoi diagram. 000
Reposted by Lawren SackTom Buckley @tombuckleylab.bsky.social · 14/06/2026I had the experience of a lifetime on Tuesday, seeing Rush in LA. Their new drummer, Anika Nilles, is off-the-charts f*king extraordinary. It seems like apostasy, but she's at least as good as Neil. @lawrensack.bsky.social was kind enough to accompany me and translate the lyrics from Canadian. 161
Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · 18/05/2026as-ku-ucla2026.dia.sinica.edu.twas-ku-ucla2026.dia.sinica.edu.twAS-KU-UCLA 2026: Redesigning Materials and Life for Planet and Human Health - Department of International AffairsRedesigning Materials and Life for Planet and Human Health — a three-day international symposium on new materials & renewable energy, biomedical research, and plant & microbial research. May 18–20, 20... 000
Reposted by Lawren Sack🌴 Scott Zona, Ph.D. 🌴 @scottzona.bsky.social · 05/05/2026Neptunia oleracea can grow on moist soil, but as it grows into water, it produces corky tissue on its stems that allows the stems to float. The leaves are held above the water. They are sensitive to touch, like Mimosa pudica. 📷: Gwendolyn Stansbury CCBYNCND2. #aquatic #Fabaceae #Botany 🌾🧪🌱 417739
Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · 07/01/2026Locating a control of plant and ecosystem water fluxes deep in the leaf | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1... 071
Reposted by Lawren SackAndrew Leakey - lab.igb.illinois.edu/leakey/ @leakey77.bsky.social · 24/11/2025Stomata In-Sight: Integrating Live Confocal Microscopy with Leaf Gas Exchange and Environmental Control url: academic.oup.com/plphys/artic... @tombuckleylab.bsky.social @lawrensack.bsky.social @sheffieldpps.bsky.social @scottmcadam.bsky.social @stanfordstomata.bsky.socialacademic.oup.comStomata In-Sight: Integrating Live Confocal Microscopy with Leaf Gas Exchange and Environmental ControlThe development of a tool to simultaneously measure stomatal conductance and aperture enables investigation into the role of stomatal anatomy in controllin 1229
Reposted by Lawren Sackjuli g pausas @jgpausas.bsky.social · 04/12/2025I'm very sad to say William Bond, of the University of Cape Town & Fellow of the Royal Society (@royalsociety.org ), has passed away. It is a great loss. He was an enthusiastic ecologist and a critical thinker. I learned a lot, and I still had a lot to learn from him. RIP. 😢 🧪🌎🔥🌿🌳🪴🌐 #PlantScience 1210536
Reposted by Lawren Sackbiometlab @biometlab.bsky.social · 14/09/2025I found an obituary for Steve www.renner-wikoffchapel.com/obituary/Ste...renner-wikoffchapel.comStephen Patrick Long Obituary | Urbana, IL | Renner-Wikoff Chapel & CrematoryView Stephen Patrick Long's complete obituary, share memories, and explore 1 tribute posts from the community. 0116
Reposted by Lawren SackIan Wright @ianjwright.bsky.social · 21/07/2025Wind and frost have surprisingly strong effects on global patterns in leaf cuticle thickness! Latitude, biome and taxonomy matter too. Other climate variables not so much. #trait research from international team including @lawrensack.bsky.social @westobymark.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1111/nph.... 02010
Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · 11/07/2025For the connoisseur of plant traits: the environmental associations of kidney-bean vs dumbbell-shaped stomatal types and their implications. Similar climate associations of stomatal size and density for grasses and non-grasses across communities. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 030
Reposted by Lawren SackBotany One @botany.one · 23/05/2025How do parasitic plants find their prey? New study shows dodder vines use touch sensitivity and light detection to hunt victims. These master grafters even attempt to parasitize metal objects. Learn more: wp.me/pdRZhH-m3g #Botany #PlantScience 🧪 04416
Reposted by Lawren SackBotanical Society of America @botsocamerica.bsky.social · 07/05/2025Leaf functional traits, insect #herbivory, & fungal damage on early Eocene leaf compression #fossils, Dolus Hill, Wyoming New #AJB research by Claudia Richbourg, Lily Jackson, Kevin Chamberlain, Ian Miller, Kirk Johnson & Ellen Currano doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... #botany #plantscience #paleobotany 0124
Reposted by Lawren SackMireia Gómez-Gallego @mireiagoga.bsky.social · 16/05/2025We found environmental plasticity in Pinus radiata phloem under light limitation and foliar pathogenic infection, with a reduction in phloem cross-sectional area. Have a look here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... a collaboration between New Zealand and @umr-iam.bsky.social 285
Reposted by Lawren SackTim Curran @timcurran.bsky.social · 17/05/2025Very excited to see this paper out! Led by @schwilk.org, with @azhar06.bsky.social @ecologybrad.bsky.social @rachaelnolan.bsky.social @alefidelis.bsky.social @ioliverasmenor.bsky.social @dendromecon27.bsky.social @profalistairsmith.bsky.social bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.comFrom plant traits to fire behavior: Scaling issues in flammability studiesDespite fire being one of the oldest and most important ecological disturbance processes on Earth, many aspects of fire–vegetation feedbacks are poorly understood, limiting their accurate representat... 14118
Reposted by Lawren SackTina Schreier @tinaschreier.bsky.social · 22/04/2025🌿 Excited to share our latest preprint! We tracked how plasmodesmata numbers evolved across the path from C₃ → C₄ photosynthesis in Flaveria - and found a stepwise increase in cell-to-cell connectivity. Thoughts or feedback are most welcome 😊 #PlantScience 35424
Reposted by Lawren SackEva Gril @evagril.bsky.social · 14/04/2025The beauty of trees as lidar point clouds... 3D pixel art 🌳 🧊 Here, an oak forest stand from the North of France, with a dense understory. Voxelised with AMAPVox @umramap.bsky.social, from our terrestrial lidar scans! @jonlen.bsky.social #EDYSAN @terschki.bsky.social 1336
Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · 10/04/2025Journal of Ecology Blog for Medeiros et al. 2025! jecologyblog.com/2025/04/08/p...jecologyblog.comPlant trait networks: Shifting of whole phenotypes with aridity and functional richnessCamila Medeiros, University of California, Los Angeles, discusses her article: Simplification of woody plant trait networks among communities along a climatic aridity gradient Motivation Plants are… 031
Reposted by Lawren SackZach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 25/03/2025OpenAI’s new image model is great at botany 5622025
Reposted by Lawren SackColton the fish squeezer🐟🪴📚🏕️🐝 @fishsqueezer.bsky.social · 26/03/2025Wait, what? I took ichthyology in college, and at no point did they explain to me that the reason early vertebrates were dominated by cartilaginous fish wasn't simplicity, but because PLANTS had not yet released enough calcium from rocks for it to become bioavailable for bone development. 🤯 🐟🌎media.tenor.coma close up of a man 's face with glasses and red hair making a funny face .Alt: Some dorky gif of John C. Reilly wearing nerd glasses and an afro while making a very surprised face. 46314
Reposted by Lawren SackChris Thorogood @christhorogood.bsky.social · 19/03/2025Balanophora is a parasitic plant that lacks chlorophyll, and steals its nutrients from tree roots. It lives beneath the rainforest floor, where once in a while, it sends up an orb that glows like the moon. 49817
Reposted by Lawren SackBotanical Society of America @botsocamerica.bsky.social · 13/03/2025Endophytic #bacteria discovered in oil body organelles of the #liverworts Marchantia polymorpha & Radula complanata New #AJB research by Blair Young, Barbara Thiers, James White, & Lena Struwe bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #botany #plantscience 0239
Reposted by Lawren SackJournal of Ecology @journalofecology.bsky.social · 06/03/2025🌿The architecture of plant trait networks is more interconnected & complex in communities with higher functional richness under less arid climates 🧪 🌏 buff.ly/iok0dnUbuff.ly 193
Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · 26/02/2025Simplification of woody plant trait networks among communities along a climatic aridity gradient - Camila Medeiros, Santiago Trueba, Chris Henry, Leila Fletcher, Jim Lutz, Rodrigo Méndez Alonzo, Nathan Kraft, Lawren Sack - Journal of Ecology t.co/F6VWVLJ6xl @nathanjbkraft.bsky.social 0207
Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · 25/02/2025The determination of leaf size on the basis of developmental traits - Zeqing Ma, Thomas N. Buckley, Lawren Sack - New Phytologist @tombuckleylab.bsky.social t.co/EFgmQo1qWy 01710
Reposted by Lawren SackJane Langdale 🌱 🌾 @janelangdale.bsky.social · 18/02/2025A curious, modest man with an encyclopaedic knowledge. No ego but a quiet self-confidence that inspired many. No doubt many publications in the coming years will report innovative ideas that he thought of decades ago…. 34415
Reposted by Lawren SackJonathan Lenoir 🌳🌲🌴 @jonlen.bsky.social · 09/12/2024Very rapid #thermophilization & #xerophilisation of grassland #plant #communities 🌾🌼🍀🌸in the California Floristic Province #CFP attributed to #climate #change ⬇️ An important study relying on both field surveys & long-term experiments ⬇️ Congrats to Kai Zhu & team shorturl.at/3FsVmshorturl.atRapid shifts in grassland communities driven by climate change - Nature Ecology & EvolutionPlant community responses to climate change tend to be lagged in forests, but could be faster in grasslands. Here, the authors integrate long-term experimental data with >1 million occurrence recor... 13519
Reposted by Lawren SackNathan J.B. Kraft @nathanjbkraft.bsky.social · 05/02/2025Excited to see this paper from Mary Van Dyke out in press- she measures how rainfall manipulations alter the timing of the life cycles of California annual plants, and explore implications for species coexistence. Thanks to Sedgwick UCNRS Reserve for facilitating her research! #AJB 0133
Reposted by Lawren SackAnnals of Botany @annbot.bsky.social · 04/02/2025📣Now Free Access: The Agavoideae: an emergent model clade for CAM evolutionary biology Get the Paper:doi.org 032
Reposted by Lawren SackBotanical Society of America @botsocamerica.bsky.social · 28/01/2025mvh: An R tool to assemble and organize virtual #herbaria from openly available specimen images New in #AppsPlantSci by @tvasconcelos.bsky.social & @jboyko.bsky.social bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... @r-foundation.bsky.social @gbif.org #botany #biodiversity #iamabotanist 28433
Reposted by Lawren SackJen Cross @jencross.bsky.social · 29/01/2025Here is a moment of peace for your timeline. Little River, Great Smoky Mountains National Park 1628096809
Reposted by Lawren SackMark A. Anthony @anthomycota.bsky.social · 28/01/2025Interesting new paper on inference with observational data in ecology onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...onlinelibrary.wiley.comCausal Inference With Observational Data and Unobserved Confounding VariablesAs ecology tackles progressively larger problems, we are moving beyond the scales at which randomised controlled experiments are feasible. Using observational data for causal inference raises the pro... 24519
Reposted by Lawren SackSavage Lab @savagecatsonly.bsky.social · 24/01/2025What limits rubisco function? Is it the chemical mechanism? Evolution? In this paper, @prywes.bsky.social et. al explore this question by assaying >99% of single amino acid mutants in Form II rubisco (1/7) doi.org/10.1038/s415... 37438
Reposted by Lawren SackErin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 25/01/2025Ever wonder what snow in the swamp would look like? This is 5 miles into the Louisiana swamps in the Atchafalaya basin... it's unreal... having lived down there for the first 28 years of my life, we never saw anything like this. Smashed records. Curtesy of Garrett Roberts. 1210347446905
Reposted by Lawren SackTroy Magney @troymagney.bsky.social · 23/01/2025New Tansley review paper from Zoe Pierrat & friends in @newphyt.bsky.social linking proximal remote sensing with ecosystem fluxes! Synergies and best practices for hyperspectral reflectance, SIF, thermal, microwave and lidar 🌈🌲🗼🛰️🧪 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 16529
Reposted by Lawren SackLaura Dee @lauradee.bsky.social · 20/01/2025Very excited this paper is now out in Ecology Letters onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.... #causalskyonlinelibrary.wiley.comFoundations and Future Directions for Causal Inference in Ecological ResearchYou have to enable JavaScript in your browser's settings in order to use the eReader. 212547
Reposted by Lawren SackProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences @pnas.org · 16/01/2025Humans living 780,000 years ago in what is now Israel ate a variety of starch-rich plants and yellow waterlily rhizomes, indicating advanced cognitive abilities, according to a study of plant microremains found on stone food-processing tools. In PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 183
Reposted by Lawren SackArthur Gessler @arthurobuntspecht.bsky.social · 15/01/2025From division to ‘divergence’: to understand wood growth across timescales, we need to (learn to) manipulate it nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.comFrom division to ‘divergence’: to understand wood growth across timescales, we need to (learn to) manipulate itWood formation is the Rosetta stone of tree physiology: a traceable, integrated record of physiological and morphological status. It also produces a large and persistent annual sink for terrestrial c... 082
Reposted by Lawren SackOwen Atkin @owenatkin.bsky.social · 15/01/2025Last day in the USA. Spent well visiting @lawrensack.bsky.social. Super impressed that Lawren works in a building with ‘BOTANY’ in the title! Ok, so the dept is EEB…..but botany is clearly the heart and engine room! And at the risk of stirring possums, let’s MAKE BOTANY GREAT AGAIN! 071
Reposted by Lawren SackDr. Crystal A. Kolden @pyrogeog.bsky.social · 09/01/2025Here's the reality about the #LAFires this week: this isn't the first time ANY of these places have burned. Not even close. In 2018, we mapped CA fire history to look at fire frequency across SoCal. Santa Monica Mtns area burns more than anywhere else -- up to once per decade in a given spot. 🧵 581648688
Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · 06/01/2025Resolving the contrasting leaf hydraulic adaptation of C3 and C4 grasses - Alec Baird et al. - New Phytologist - nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... @colinplants.bsky.social @cscoffoni.bsky.social @hcochard.bsky.social @erikajedw.bsky.social 0113
Reposted by Lawren SackJohn Dwyer @john-m-dwyer.bsky.social · 03/12/2024🔥 in Ecology Letters 🔥 #Traits describing hydraulic strategies and deciduousness explain the occurrence trends of almost 300 #rainforest #tree species across a steep rainfall gradient in Australia. #FunctionalTraits dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele....dx.doi.orgA Functional Basis for the Assembly of Australian Subtropical Rainforest Tree CommunitiesWe surveyed rainforest tree communities across the Australian subtropics (spanning 600 to 2500 mm rainfall year−1) and measured functional traits on 285 (91%) of all recorded species. Hydraulic strat.... 59334
Reposted by Lawren SackKristina Anderson-Teixeira @k-andersonteixeira.bsky.social · 02/12/2024**FORESTGEO STAFF SCIENTIST POSITION!** We are hiring a Research Ecologist to focus on Central and South American Forest Dynamics, to be based at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Smithsonian staff scientist positions are excellent, as is the ForestGEO team! Come be our colleague!forestgeo.si.eduForestGEO Staff Scientist - Research Ecologist, South & Central American Tropical ForestsThe Forest Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO) is a global network of forest research plots and scientists dedicated to the study of forest function and diversity. 25547
Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · 24/11/2024A Theoretical Framework to Quantify Ecosystem Pressure-Volume Relationships onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...onlinelibrary.wiley.comA Theoretical Framework to Quantify Ecosystem Pressure‐Volume RelationshipsThe amount of water contained in, and available to, vegetation strongly constrains the functioning and total biomass of ecosystems. As such, there is a lot of interest in measuring, monitoring and mo... 14414
Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · 28/10/2024Sensitive Hydraulic and Stomatal Decline in Extreme Drought Tolerant Species of California Ceanothus doi.org/10.1111/pce.15208 @ZailaaJ @cscoffoni5 @TomBuckleyLab @brodersen_lab @strueba_ @fletcher_leila @marvin_browne 050
Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · 18/06/2024The Ecosystem as Super-organ/ism, Revisited: Scaling Hydraulics to Forests under Climate Change academic.oup.com/icb/article-abstra… 020
Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · 22/05/2024Pinpointing the causal influences of stomatal anatomy and behavior on minimum, operational, and maximum leaf surface conductance academic.oup.com/plphys/article-abs… 110
Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · 13/05/2024Statement to Students and the Campus Community from Faculty within the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department, UCLA docs.google.com/document/d/1o_gJI_z… @nathanjbkraft @ElsaOrdway @VanMSavage @s_m_aguillon @nanditagarud...docs.google.comStatement to Students and the Campus Community from Facul...Statement to Students and the Campus Community We are me... 010
Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · 03/01/2024Ingenious discoveries from a year of UC research: UCLA botanists figured out how to “ask” plants what they need to survive climate change www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news…universityofcalifornia.edu12 ingenious discoveries from a year of UC researchIn 2023, every campus, lab and medical center came throug... 010
Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · 25/10/2023Allometries of cell and tissue anatomy and photosynthetic rate across leaves of C3 and C4 grasses - Baird - Plant, Cell & Environment onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10… 010
