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Lawren Sack

@lawrensack.bsky.social

770 followers 1.3K following 160 posts

Professor at UCLA (EEB, IoES) fascinated by plant life and ecology. he/him/his

Videos

Environmental science 44%

Agriculture 23%

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Reposted by Ankur R. Desai, Lawren Sack, Matthias Cuntz

biometlab @biometlab.bsky.social · 25d

I found an obituary for Steve

www.renner-wikoffchapel.com/obituary/Ste...

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Reposted by Lawren Sack

Ian Wright @ianjwright.bsky.social · Jul 21

Wind and frost have surprisingly strong effects on global patterns in leaf cuticle thickness! Latitude, biome and taxonomy matter too. Other climate variables not so much. #trait research from international team including @lawrensack.bsky.social @westobymark.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1111/nph....

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Reposted by Lawren Sack

Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · Jul 11

For the connoisseur of plant traits: the environmental associations of kidney-bean vs dumbbell-shaped stomatal types and their implications. Similar climate associations of stomatal size and density for grasses and non-grasses across communities. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · Jun 7

Nice work! though I’m reluctant to needle anyone about leaf nomenclature, technically some of those angiosperm “needle leaves” are not leaves, but branchlets and phyllodes. Correcting the correction :)

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Reposted by Lawren Sack

Botany One @botany.one · May 23

How do parasitic plants find their prey? New study shows dodder vines use touch sensitivity and light detection to hunt victims. These master grafters even attempt to parasitize metal objects.

Learn more: wp.me/pdRZhH-m3g

#Botany #PlantScience 🧪

Cuscuta crawling over a hapless plant. The sickly yellow threads of the parasite are wrapped around the green of the victim like a thick spider's web.

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Reposted by Lawren Sack

Tim Curran @timcurran.bsky.social · May 16

Very excited to see this paper out!

Led by @schwilk.org, with @azhar06.bsky.social @ecologybrad.bsky.social @rachaelnolan.bsky.social @alefidelis.bsky.social @ioliverasmenor.bsky.social @dendromecon27.bsky.social @profalistairsmith.bsky.social

bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

From plant traits to fire behavior: Scaling issues in flammability studies

Despite fire being one of the oldest and most important ecological disturbance processes on Earth, many aspects of fire–vegetation feedbacks are poorly understood, limiting their accurate representat...

bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Reposted by Lawren Sack

Mireia Gómez-Gallego @mireiagoga.bsky.social · May 16

We found environmental plasticity in Pinus radiata phloem under light limitation and foliar pathogenic infection, with a reduction in phloem cross-sectional area. Have a look here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... a collaboration between New Zealand and @umr-iam.bsky.social

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Reposted by Lawren Sack

Botanical Society of America @botsocamerica.bsky.social · May 7

Leaf functional traits, insect #herbivory, & fungal damage on early Eocene leaf compression #fossils, Dolus Hill, Wyoming

New #AJB research by Claudia Richbourg, Lily Jackson, Kevin Chamberlain, Ian Miller, Kirk Johnson & Ellen Currano

doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... #botany #plantscience #paleobotany

Image of leaf fossil with insect feeding damage.

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Reposted by Lawren Sack

bioRxiv Plant Bio @biorxiv-plants.bsky.social · Apr 22

Stepwise increase in plasmodesmata during C4 evolution in Flaveria https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.18.649591v1

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Reposted by Lawren Sack, Jane K. Hill

Eva Gril @evagril.bsky.social · Apr 14

The beauty of trees as lidar point clouds... 3D pixel art 🌳 🧊
Here, an oak forest stand from the North of France, with a dense understory. Voxelised with AMAPVox @umramap.bsky.social, from our terrestrial lidar scans!
@jonlen.bsky.social #EDYSAN @terschki.bsky.social

A forest stand visualized as 3D pixels, or "voxels", extracted on a 20 by 20 m square. It is dense, but the different tree stems are easy to distinguish. Voxels are colored by height, from dark blue near the ground to light green in the top of the canopy (24 m height maximum).

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Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · Apr 10

Journal of Ecology Blog for Medeiros et al. 2025!

jecologyblog.com/2025/04/08/p...

Plant trait networks: Shifting of whole phenotypes with aridity and functional richness

Camila Medeiros, University of California, Los Angeles, discusses her article: Simplification of woody plant trait networks among communities along a climatic aridity gradient Motivation Plants are…

jecologyblog.com

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Reposted by Lawren Sack

Colton the fish squeezer🐟🪴📚🏕️🐝 @fishsqueezer.bsky.social · Mar 26

Wait, what? I took ichthyology in college, and at no point did they explain to me that the reason early vertebrates were dominated by cartilaginous fish wasn't simplicity, but because PLANTS had not yet released enough calcium from rocks for it to become bioavailable for bone development. 🤯 🐟🌎

a close up of a man 's face with glasses and red hair making a funny face .

Alt: Some dorky gif of John C. Reilly wearing nerd glasses and an afro while making a very surprised face.

media.tenor.com

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Reposted by Lawren Sack

Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · Mar 25

OpenAI’s new image model is great at botany

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Reposted by Lawren Sack

Chris Thorogood @christhorogood.bsky.social · Mar 19

Balanophora is a parasitic plant that lacks chlorophyll, and steals its nutrients from tree roots. It lives beneath the rainforest floor, where once in a while, it sends up an orb that glows like the moon.

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Reposted by Lawren Sack

Botanical Society of America @botsocamerica.bsky.social · Mar 13

Endophytic #bacteria discovered in oil body organelles of the #liverworts Marchantia polymorpha & Radula complanata

New #AJB research by Blair Young, Barbara Thiers, James White, & Lena Struwe

bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #botany #plantscience

A confocal microscope photo of the cells of Radula complanata with fluorescent staining of cell walls and oil bodies.

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Reposted by Lawren Sack

Journal of Ecology @journalofecology.bsky.social · Mar 6

🌿The architecture of plant trait networks is more interconnected & complex in communities with higher functional richness under less arid climates 🧪 🌏

buff.ly/iok0dnU

buff.ly

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Reposted by Lawren Sack

Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · Feb 26

Simplification of woody plant trait networks among communities along a climatic aridity gradient - Camila Medeiros, Santiago Trueba, Chris Henry, Leila Fletcher, Jim Lutz, Rodrigo Méndez Alonzo, Nathan Kraft, Lawren Sack - Journal of Ecology t.co/F6VWVLJ6xl

@nathanjbkraft.bsky.social

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Reposted by Lawren Sack

Reposted by Sylvain Delzon

Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · Feb 25

The determination of leaf size on the basis of developmental traits - Zeqing Ma, Thomas N. Buckley, Lawren Sack - New Phytologist @tombuckleylab.bsky.social

t.co/EFgmQo1qWy

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Lawren Sack @lawrensack.bsky.social · Feb 21

it's like a 300 item gratitude list on your fridge!

Reposted by Mak A. Saito, Lawren Sack

westobymark.bsky.social @westobymark.bsky.social · Feb 18

"John Raven, FRS, FRSE: a truly great innovator in plant physiology, photosynthesis and much more" link.springer.com/article/10.1...

John Raven, FRS, FRSE: a truly great innovator in plant physiology, photosynthesis and much more - Photosynthesis Research

This is a tribute to a truly inspirational plant biologist, Prof. John A. Raven, FRS, FRSE (25th June 1941– 23rd May 2024), who died at the age of 82. He was a leader in the field of evolution and phy...

link.springer.com

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Reposted by Lawren Sack

Botanical Society of America @botsocamerica.bsky.social · Feb 5

Changes in flowering phenology with altered rainfall & the potential community impacts in an annual #grassland

New #AJB research by Mary Van Dyke & Nathan Kraft

doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... #botany #plantscience #globalchange

Flowers in bloom in a serpentine grassland.

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Reposted by Lawren Sack

Annals of Botany @annbot.bsky.social · Feb 4

📣Now Free Access: The Agavoideae: an emergent model clade for CAM evolutionary biology
Get the Paper:

doi.org

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Reposted by Lawren Sack

Jen Cross @jencross.bsky.social · Jan 29

Here is a moment of peace for your timeline.

Little River, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

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