News & events
News
Scientists at the Australian Research Council (ARC) ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis (CoETP) have found that some plants have ten times more communication channels inside their leaves than other plants, which they think is a crucial factor in determining photosynthetic efficiency.
ANU congratulates distinguished scientist and ANU Professor Graham Farquhar AO for being named the 2018 Senior Australian of the Year.
Photosynthesis is an essential biological process that depends on the activity of the enzyme Rubisco which catalyses carbon fixation. Rubisco is slow, inefficient and cannot accurately distinguish between CO2 and O2. ANU researchers have been trying to improve the efficiency of Rubisco in crop plants.
The investigations into carbon fixation and gas exchange by RSBS researchers were essential to the understanding of photosynthesis, and the development of new processes to increase the efficiency of the photosynthetic process in agriculture.
Carboxysomes are polyhedral protein micro-compartments in cyanobacteria which concentrate CO2 and increase the efficiency of carbon fixation. In 1993, RSBS researchers Dean Price, Murray Badger and Susan Howitt determined the genetic sequence encoding for the proteins that form the protein shell of a carboxysome.
Legumes are an interesting plant to study due to their symbiotic relationship with nitrogen fixing bacteria called Rhizobia, which are housed within specialised root structures called nodules. The work of ANU researchers has been very important for our understanding of symbiosis, nodule formation and nitrogen fixation.
Events
Tropical forests are highly productive and biodiverse, exchanging more carbon with the atmosphere than any other terrestrial ecosystem and representing the apex of taxonomic and structural diversity on land.
The research line is devoted to the study of the interaction between peanuts and beneficial microorganisms.
Phi thickenings are peculiar secondary cell wall thickenings that form reinforcing bands around the radial walls of cortical cells in plant roots, a location where only a primary cell wall would normally be found.
Global crop yields per hectare have plateaued in recent years while consumption and population continue to grow.
This seminar begins with the three and a half fold increase in the farm yield of irrigated wheat from 1960 to 2019 in NW Mexico, the homebase of the CIMMYT wheat breeding program
The ability to rapidly adapt to changing environments, especially to artificial environments created by industrial agriculture and modern medicine, is crucial for the success of pathogens infecting plants and animals.