Lawren Sack
@lawrensack.bsky.social
Professor at UCLA (EEB, IoES) fascinated by plant life and ecology. he/him/his
Reposted by Lawren Sack
September 14, 2025 at 7:59 AM
Reposted by Lawren Sack
Wind 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....
July 21, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Wind 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....
For 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...
July 11, 2025 at 5:04 PM
For 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...
Reposted by Lawren Sack
How 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 🧪
Learn more: wp.me/pdRZhH-m3g
#Botany #PlantScience 🧪
May 23, 2025 at 7:30 PM
How 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 🧪
Learn more: wp.me/pdRZhH-m3g
#Botany #PlantScience 🧪
Reposted by Lawren Sack
Leaf 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
New #AJB research by Claudia Richbourg, Lily Jackson, Kevin Chamberlain, Ian Miller, Kirk Johnson & Ellen Currano
doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... #botany #plantscience #paleobotany
May 7, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Leaf 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
New #AJB research by Claudia Richbourg, Lily Jackson, Kevin Chamberlain, Ian Miller, Kirk Johnson & Ellen Currano
doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... #botany #plantscience #paleobotany
Reposted by Lawren Sack
We 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
May 16, 2025 at 4:23 PM
We 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
Reposted by Lawren Sack
Very 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/...
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/...
From plant traits to fire behavior: Scaling issues in flammability studies
Despite 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...
bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
May 16, 2025 at 11:32 PM
Reposted by Lawren Sack
🌿 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
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
Stepwise increase in plasmodesmata during C4 evolution in Flaveria https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.18.649591v1
April 22, 2025 at 9:15 PM
🌿 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
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
Reposted by Lawren Sack
The 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
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
April 14, 2025 at 12:40 PM
The 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
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
Reposted by Lawren Sack
OpenAI’s new image model is great at botany
March 25, 2025 at 7:27 PM
OpenAI’s new image model is great at botany
Reposted by Lawren Sack
Wait, 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. 🤯 🐟🌎
a 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.
media.tenor.com
March 26, 2025 at 12:53 AM
Wait, 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. 🤯 🐟🌎
Reposted by Lawren Sack
Balanophora 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.
March 19, 2025 at 7:05 AM
Balanophora 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.
Reposted by Lawren Sack
Endophytic #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
New #AJB research by Blair Young, Barbara Thiers, James White, & Lena Struwe
bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #botany #plantscience
March 13, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Endophytic #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
New #AJB research by Blair Young, Barbara Thiers, James White, & Lena Struwe
bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #botany #plantscience
Reposted by Lawren Sack
🌿The architecture of plant trait networks is more interconnected & complex in communities with higher functional richness under less arid climates 🧪 🌏
buff.ly/iok0dnU
buff.ly/iok0dnU
buff.ly
March 6, 2025 at 3:15 PM
🌿The architecture of plant trait networks is more interconnected & complex in communities with higher functional richness under less arid climates 🧪 🌏
buff.ly/iok0dnU
buff.ly/iok0dnU
Simplification 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
@nathanjbkraft.bsky.social
February 26, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Simplification 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
@nathanjbkraft.bsky.social
The 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
t.co/EFgmQo1qWy
February 25, 2025 at 6:38 AM
The 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
t.co/EFgmQo1qWy
Reposted by Lawren Sack
A 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….
"John Raven, FRS, FRSE: a truly great innovator in plant physiology, photosynthesis and much more" link.springer.com/article/10.1...
John Raven, FRS, FRSE: a truly great innovator in plant physiology, photosynthesis and much more - Photosynthesis Research
This is a tribute to a truly inspirational plant biologist, Prof. John A. Raven, FRS, FRSE (25th June 1941– 23rd May 2024), who died at the age of 82. He was a leader in the field of evolution and phy...
link.springer.com
February 18, 2025 at 6:33 AM
A 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….
Reposted by Lawren Sack
Very 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/3FsVm
shorturl.at/3FsVm
Rapid shifts in grassland communities driven by climate change - Nature Ecology & Evolution
Plant 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...
shorturl.at
December 9, 2024 at 11:57 AM
Very 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/3FsVm
shorturl.at/3FsVm
Reposted by Lawren Sack
Excited 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
Changes in flowering phenology with altered rainfall & the potential community impacts in an annual #grassland
New #AJB research by Mary Van Dyke & Nathan Kraft
doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... #botany #plantscience #globalchange
New #AJB research by Mary Van Dyke & Nathan Kraft
doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... #botany #plantscience #globalchange
February 5, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Excited 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
Reposted by Lawren Sack
📣Now Free Access: The Agavoideae: an emergent model clade for CAM evolutionary biology
Get the Paper:
Get the Paper:
doi.org
February 4, 2025 at 6:02 PM
📣Now Free Access: The Agavoideae: an emergent model clade for CAM evolutionary biology
Get the Paper:
Get the Paper:
Reposted by Lawren Sack
mvh: 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
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
January 28, 2025 at 6:57 PM
mvh: 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
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
Reposted by Lawren Sack
Here is a moment of peace for your timeline.
Little River, Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Little River, Great Smoky Mountains National Park
January 29, 2025 at 2:39 AM
Here is a moment of peace for your timeline.
Little River, Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Little River, Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Reposted by Lawren Sack
Interesting new paper on inference with observational data in ecology onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Causal Inference With Observational Data and Unobserved Confounding Variables
As 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...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
January 28, 2025 at 7:58 AM
Interesting new paper on inference with observational data in ecology onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Reposted by Lawren Sack
What 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...
January 24, 2025 at 8:27 PM
What 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...