"We're looking into improved varieties of melons, such as cantaloupe and honeydew, and are growing and assessing some Spanish and Italian specialty melons that are relatively new to this area," said Dr. Daniel Leskovar, Texas AgriLife Research vegetable physiologist and interim center director.

The international team, led by Dr Brendan Wintle of the University of Melbourne and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, is the first to develop a pioneering decision-support model that incorporates both ecological and economic information to guide conservation investment in the face of climate change.

The work is published on September 19 in the journal Nature Climate Change.

In terms of diversity, orchids are one of the most successful groups of flowering plants, with over 22,000 species. Both pollinating animals and mycorrhizal fungi are believed to have been important in the diversification of orchids (and other flowering plants), but the mechanisms by which these above- and below-ground mutualisms affect speciation remain obscure.

Scientists from Kew, Imperial College London, and Stellenbosch, Washington and Bayreuth universities have been investigating these mechanisms in a study of 52 orchid species in a small region of South Africa.

Homeowners and taxpayers are picking up most of the tab for damages caused by invasive tree-feeding insects that are inadvertently imported along with packing materials, live plants, and other goods. That's the conclusion of a team of biologists and economists, whose research findings are reported in the journal PLoS One this week.

The authors explain that non-native, wood-boring insects such as the emerald ash borer and the Asian longhorned beetle exact an estimated $1.7 billion in local government expenditures, and approximately $830 million in lost residential property values each year.

Celebrating the end to a successful peach season, Clemson University peach specialist Desmond Layne announced the naming of a new peach cultivar — CaroTiger. The fourth in the "Caro" — for South Carolina — series, this late-season peach will be available to growers in January 2013.

"Up until now, this peach just had a number — SC82035-13-48 — but it earned a name during our long-term germplasm evaluation research," said Layne. "We've been testing this particular selection at multiple locations for several years. Its performance has been excellent.

Shota Atsumi, an assistant professor of chemistry, is using "synthetic biology" to create cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, that convert carbon dioxide in the air into complex hydrocarbons, all powered by sunlight.

Cyanobacteria are single-celled organisms that, like green plants, can use sunlight to turn carbon dioxide and water into sugars and other carbohydrates.

A new plant species that buries its seeds -- the first in its family -- was discovered in the Atlantic forest of Bahia, Brazil, by an international team of amateur and professional scientists.

José Carlos Mendes Santos (a.k.a. Louro) is a handyman in rural northeastern Bahia, Brazil -- one of the areas of the world with the highest biodiversity. Two years ago, he found a tiny, inch-high plant with white-and-pink flowers in the backyards of the off-the-grid house of amateur botanist and local plant collector Alex Popovkin.

Rochester Institute of Technology scientist André Hudson and colleagues have figured out how to outsmart the organism.

"We have recently deciphered the structure of an essential enzyme in the photosynthetic organism that is a target for algaecide development," says Hudson, assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences in RIT's College of Science.

Across the western Cape of South Africa can be found small plants in the Iris family called Babiana. Flitting between them are sunbirds, small colourful birds like the African version of hummingbirds, that drink the nectar of flowers and in doing so pollinate them. New research to be published early next year in a special edition on plant mating in the Annals of Botany by De Waal, Anderson and Barrett shows that while birds are important for plant reproduction, when it comes to sex Babiana don't put all their eggs in one basket.

Plant pores, called stomata, are essential for life. When they evolved about 400 million years ago, they helped plants conquer the land. Plants absorb carbon dioxide through stomata and release oxygen and water vapour as part of Earth's carbon and water cycles.