The Australian plant family is highly efficient in the
management of the nutrient
Plants in the leached soils of Western Australia have
developed a special strategy for coping with the scarcity of phosphorus.
Together with colleagues from the University of Western Australia, Perth,
scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Golm
near Potsdam have discovered that plants from the Banksia genus of the
Proteaceae family make severe cutbacks, in particular to the RNA found in the
ribosomes (rRNA). The cell’s protein factories are the biggest consumers of
phosphorus; in this way, the plants save on both phosphorus and water. As
global phosphorous reserves are in severe decline, the strategies of the
Proteaceae could be of interest from the perspective of optimising crop plants
through breeding.