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It doesn’t feel like three years since the first papers were published in Nature Plants in January 2015. However, as Nature Plants embarks on its 4th volume this seems like a good time to look back on the research we have published in the last three years. It is always difficult choosing the ‘highlights’ from such a wide-ranging collection of research. For this anniversary collection we have looked to see which have been the highest performers by a few measures:
The most read papers as judged by the number of times that they have been downloaded from our site.
The most cited papers from each of our first three years.
The most discussed papers as judged by the Altmetric scores that they have accrued.
Interestingly the top papers by each measure are not the same!
The desert moss Syntrichia caninervis maximizes water collection in dry environments by collecting water droplets from fog using the tiny hairs on the end of its leaves and passing them down through the plant, rather than taking water up through the roots.
Maize originated in southern Mexico from domestication of the wild grass teosinte, and diffused throughout the Americas. Sequenced DNA from archaeological samples spanning 6,000 years, documents the diffusion route and reveals the genes that were specifically selected for climatic and cultural adaptation to the US Southwest.
Two high-quality genomes of petunia wild parents reveal two rounds of hexaploidization in the evolution of Petunia lineage and provide insights into the diversity of floral patterns and pollination systems — enhancing the model value of this genus.
Many plants exhibit iridescence but no link has been demonstrated between this phenomenon and photosynthesis. This study shows the epidermal chloroplasts of Begonia to have photonic properties that increase both light capture and quantum yield.
Fully enclosed, controlled-environment growth chambers can accelerate plant development. Such ‘speed breeding’ reduces generation times to accelerate crop breeding and research programmes, and can integrate with other modern crop breeding technologies.
There's a lack of knowledge on the extent to which mRNAs are transported across tissues in plants. Now a study combining RNA-seq with grafting experiments identifies 2,006 genes in Arabidopsis thaliana that generate mobile mRNAs.