It’s been a long time there wasn’t much shameless self promotion here, so Seeds Aside is back whoot-whooting blatantly with open access science. I know, this isn’t the first time I get published in an OA venue, but this time it’s with a well known and almost historical part of OA. The ONE that turned what is called a science mega-journal (currently publishing over 23,000 papers a year): PLOSONE.Long ago, at the very beginning of both my scientific career and the very birth of this journal, I had been suggested to go PLOS1, really just at the starting start, almost when nobody had even published in it. Some co-authors advised me against this move, because PLOS1 was really just a bet (it proved a relatively safe bet then, but we simply couldn’t know) and I better had to secure publishing in a journal of demonstrated famousness. As a young trainee, I took the advice, and actually never went on trying PLOS1. Now, I had a beautiful study (sorry, my inflated opinon) left without truly logical venue to publish into (to my defence I am not completely familiar with current phytopathological outlets and it didn’t seem that the subject was really fitting anywhere -I might be wrong but that’s it), so going PLOS1 was probably the right move.

And there it is:

Direct Splash Dispersal Prevails over Indirect and Subsequent Spread during Rains in Colletotrichum gloeosporioides Infecting Yams

Abstract

Plant pathogens have evolved many dispersal mechanisms, using biotic or abiotic vectors or a combination of the two. Rain splash dispersal is known from a variety of fungi, and can be an efficient driver of crop epidemics, with infectious strains propagating rapidly among often genetically homogenous neighboring plants. Splashing is nevertheless a local dispersal process and spores taking the droplet ride seldom move farther than a few decimeters. In this study, we assessed rain splash dispersal of conidia of the yam anthracnose agent, Colletotrichum gloeosporioides, in an experimental setting using a rain simulator, with emphasis on the impact of soil contamination (i.e., effect of re-splashing events). Spores dispersed up to 50 cm from yam leaf inoculum sources, though with an exponential decrease with increasing distance. While few spores were dispersed via re-splash from spore-contaminated soil, the proportion deposited via this mechanism increased with increasing distance from the initial source. We found no soil contamination carryover from previous rains, suggesting that contamination via re-splashing from contaminated soils mainly occurred within single rains. We conclude that most dispersal occurs from direct splashing, with a weaker contribution of indirect dispersal via re-splash.

I guess more on this is coming soon. But you can already go and figure yourself! :)

April Berry Go Round

March Berry Go Round

May BGR is coming soon!

The Game of Evolution (CoE #170).

Have a good read!

Flower.

Nothing to add!

February Berry-Go-Round: Botanical Warfare

Carnival of Evolution, February 2014 Edition

69th Carnival of Evolution: Darwin’s Day Edition

Some other blog carnivals…

Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival – February 2014

Welcome to the March 2014 Blog Carnival of Horses

Carnivalesque #101

Small Gardens at the NWFGS 2014

Washington Oaks Gardens in Flagler county, Florida; 12 January 2014

Vegetarian Music

A Fence Of A Different Color

Evolution-friendly young folk proffer questions for creationists

The fruit that keeps on giving . . .

Friday Cat-erpillar Blogging: Wax Moth Proventriculus

Since I don’t have much time to blog currently, this turns out to be the time it gets here. Fortunately, there isn’t much traffic to begins with, and porn can help boosting it a bit, while hopefully there will be more posting here when readers return.

So the question is, what would nature geek porn look like? In my informed opinion, it’ll be like this:

If you wonder why, it’s not just because. One of the synonyms for the slug illustrated here is Vaginulus floridanus. The flower is Clitoria ternatea. And you know what? Besides rocketting traffic in here, and despite a pure nature geekery, it is still very suggestive and hopefully some good porn… :-)

And it’s also safe for office.