fixity — the behavior of fossil organisms will be similar to the behavior of their extant descendants at the generic level — my wife and I re-constructed the type of Tertiary forest that existed in Hispaniola based on plants and animals in Dominican amber. We concluded that the amber forest in Hispaniola was similar to today’s tropical moist forest, but was much more diverse and contained a num...

Vernalization is the process by which prolonged exposure to cold temperatures promotes flowering. Over the past century, this process has been studied extensively at the physiological level. Recent studies have provided some insight into the molecular basis of vernalization. The rich history of vernalization research has been discussed in detail in many reviews (Chouard, 1960; Lang, 1965; Berni...

Vernalization is the process by which prolonged exposure to cold temperatures promotes flowering. Over the past century, this process has been studied extensively at the physiological level. Recent studies have provided some insight into the molecular basis of vernalization. The rich history of vernalization research has been discussed in detail in many reviews (Chouard, 1960; Lang, 1965; Berni...

The proper timing of flowering is critical for successful reproduction. The perception of the seasonal cues of day-length changes and exposure to cold influences flowering time in many plant species through the photoperiod and vernalization pathways, respectively. Here we show that a plant homeodomain (PHD) finger-containing protein, VIN3-LIKE 1 (VIL1), participates in both the photoperiod and ...

The long noncoding RNA COLDAIR is necessary for the repression of a floral repressor FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) during vernalization in Arabidopsis thaliana. The repression of FLC is mediated by increased enrichment of Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2) and subsequent trimethylation of Histone H3 Lysine 27 (H3K27me3) at FLC chromatin. In this study we found that the association of COLDAIR with c...

Many plant species including temperate grasses require vernalization in order to flower. Vernalization is the process of promotion of flowering after exposure to prolonged periods of cold. To investigate the vernalization response in monocots, the expression patterns of about 1,500 unique genes of Lolium perenne were analyzed by a cDNA microarray approach, at different time points after transfe...

The transition from vegetative to reproductive development in the temperate cereals is mainly regulated by seasonal cues including vernalization (determined mainly by VRN1 and VRN2 genes) and photoperiod (determined mainly by PPD1 and CO2 genes). The wheat VRN3 gene, which is similar to Arabidopsis FT, plays a central role in the integration of the competing signals from these two pathways. Und...

Triticum aestivum L. cv 'Chogokuwase' is an extra-early flowering common wheat cultivar that is insensitive to photoperiod conferred by the photoperiod insensitive alleles at the Photoperiod-B1 (Ppd-B1) and Ppd-D1loci, and does not require vernalization for flowering. This reduced vernalization requirement is likely due to the spring habitat allele Vrn-D1 at the VERNALIZATION-D1 locus. Genotype...

Vernalization-induced flowering is a cold-relevant adaptation in many species, but little is known about the genetic basis behind in Orchidaceae species. Here, we reported a collection of 15017 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from the vernalized axillary buds of an Orchidaceae species, Dendrobium nobile, which were assembled for 9616 unique gene clusters. Functional enrichment analysis showed th...