Our Plants (and Food Crop Farming)

Editors: Ken Timmis and Juan Luis Ramosl

Modified from starline and brgfx/Freepik

Overview: Plants are central to life in the biosphere: they are the photosynthetic primary producers (produce biomass from atmospheric carbon dioxide) at the base of many food webs, are food crop plants that feed humanity and the food animals we rear, they provide habitats for all manner of organisms, so are key to biodiversity, they nourish the soil and its microbes and thereby bury carbon that would otherwise contribute to greenhouse gases, they provide visual beauty for us and are traditional gifts between people, and they provide us with materials like wood, straw, cork, rubber, etc. we use in a multitude of ways in a multitude of settings. But plants only exist as plant:microbe partnerships, with the microbes influencing their wellbeing in vital ways. Let’s hear the microbial side of the plant story!

Creation of the TFs is a work in progress: those already available are indicated by titles that are live links. Titles of those still in the pipeline are shown for context.

(For vignettes of some of the star actors in these stories, see the MicroStars, MicroDefenders Portrait Galleries)