Academics from Royal Holloway, University of London in collaboration with The Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience (CABI) and the University of Reading are the first in Europe to study the ecological effects of a rust fungus on the invasive plant species, Himalayan Balsam, in the field. […]

Every day, people around the world harvest natural products like fungi, plants, bark, flowers, honey and nuts. These non-timber forest products, as they are known, can play an important role – particularly for people living in rural areas. […]

Genome analysis reveals that North African date palms are a hybrid between cultivated date palms from the Middle East and a different, wild species of palm that grows on the island of Crete and in small areas of Southern Turkey. These findings, the result of research at NYU Abu Dhabi's Center for Genomics and Systems Biology (NYUAD CGSB), shed new light on the evolutionary history of one of the earliest domesticated tree crops in the world, which remains a major fruit crop in North Africa and […]

Given the pressures that pollinators face in agricultural land, cities could play an important role in conserving pollinators, according to a new study. The research, carried out by scientists at the Universities of Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds and Reading in collaboration with Cardiff University and the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), has revealed that gardens and allotments are good for pollinators, and lavender and borage are important garden plants that pollinators use […]

When it gets hot outside, humans and animals have the luxury of seeking shelter in the shade or cool, air-conditioned buildings. But plants are stuck. […]