Greedy Plants: Water use and nighttime transpiration in the tallgrass prairie

This post is a highlight of a research article recently published by K-State alum Dr. Kimberly O’Keefe and her PhD advisor, Dr. Jesse Nippert.

On the Biology Division office front desk sits a small bowl of candy. Students often grab one or two pieces on their way in and out of the office, as expected, but you would not necessarily expect a student to take the whole bowl. Likewise, you would not expect other organisms to use more resources than they need, not necessarily because they have manners, but because it is not efficient to gather more resources than necessary. Yet recent evidence suggests that in some grasslands, certain plants may be doing just that—absorbing more than they need to cripple their neighbors’ success. These greedy plants are not hoarding candy, but water, which is essential to life.

Different stories, same conclusion: how evolution is sometimes like a “choose your own adventure” book

When I was growing up, I really enjoyed “choose your own adventure” books. The adventures in these books would start out with the same problem and allow you to make decisions that would affect the story’s outcome from there. For instance, you might start out at the entrance to a cave and have to decide whether to go in or walk in the opposite direction. Typically, these different decisions would lead to different outcomes, although occasionally two or more stories would converge on the same ending.