Botany & Plant Pathology

The eighth wonder of the world might be a hundred-million-year-old process: pollination. When you stop and smell the flowers or buy a bouquet, aroma and beauty likely drew you in. Meanwhile, right under your nose, ancient partnerships are hidden within every bud and are the reason for the sweet scent, bright colors, intricate patterns and up to 90% of the food you eat. This floral complexity is not made for human appreciation, but rather to move tiny particles that make us sneeze and rub our eyes — pollen grains.

The average long-term return on the stock market is about 10 percent. For AgSEED, the Purdue College of Agriculture’s internal competitive grants system, it’s more like 400 percent. It’s an outsized return with outsized impact, benefiting researchers, students, and citizens across the state and beyond.

Camila Nicolli, research assistant professor of mycotoxin fungal biology in the Department of Plant Pathology, and Matheus Zavadinack, research assistant professor in carbohydrate chemistry in the Department of Food Science, have joined Purdue University's College of Agriculture faculty this Spring semester.

Daniel Szymanski, professor of Purdue’s Departments of Botany and Plant Pathology and Biological Sciences, and Thomas Siegmund, professor in Purdue’s School of Mechanical Engineering, as well as Chelsea Davis, associate professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Delaware, recently received an $1.1 million award to Purdue and a $345 thousand award for the University of Delaware from the National Science Foundation to advance knowledge on plant cell adhesion.

Growing up in Greenwood, Indiana, Ian Rimer was the quintessential outdoor kid, spending most of his time running around in cornfields or exploring the forest near his house. From a young age, he was aware that the natural world he loved was under threat. His father, a school principal, was an ardent environmentalist, and Rimer grew up learning about drought in Australia and the ravages of beetles in the boreal forests of the far north. “I feel very blessed to have had that awareness at such a young age,” he says. As a Purdue undergrad, Rimer initially majored in pharmacy before switching to biology, but found himself increasingly drawn to plant sciences. He emailed several plant sciences professors to see if they had any research opportunities, and was put in touch with a new faculty member, Scott McAdam. He began working in McAdam’s lab, which investigates plant water use and drought tolerance. “That really interested me because I’m a climate activist, and I knew I wanted to look at whole plant responses to the environment,” Rimer says. “So it was a good fit.” When Rimer decided to apply to grad school, McAdam suggested he consider staying at Purdue. Rimer began his PhD in botany and plant pathology in January of 2023.

Purdue University researchers found that a subset of epidermal cells in plant leaves serves as early responders to chemical cues from bacterial pathogens and communicate this information to neighbors through a local traveling wave of calcium ions. The properties of this local wave differ from those generated when epidermal cells are wounded, suggesting that distinct mechanisms are used by plants to communicate specific types of pathogen attack, the team reported Dec. 2 in Science Signaling.