Peter Schafran

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It isn’t just rare plants that rely on granite outcrop pools, they’re also home to aquatic invertebrates like shrimp, copepods, rotifers, and ostriches. Amphibians cross the vast expanses of bare rock to lay eggs there too.

Not many outcrops are well protected. They attract activities like trash dumping, off-roading, quarrying, and bonfires. As a result, about 50% of black-spored quillwort populations have been extirpated in the last 100 years.

An unusual Isoetes, black-spored quillwort grows over bare rock in a thin layer of sand where rainfall collects during the winter. It will survive the summer in the soil as spores and desiccation-tolerant rootstocks. Quillworts have adapted to this habitat several times around the world.

Back by request, my online quillwort course is happening this September! Registration at eaglehill.us

The United States National Herbarium is seeking a Lead Collections Manager! For complete requirements and application procedures, please visit USAJOBS (www.usajobs.gov/job/864499200). Applications and all supporting documentation must be received online by 1 May 2026.

Mark your calendars, news coming soon...

It's the last week of the hornwort class, we'll be discussing species boundaries, ecology, biogeography and genomics. We'll have the pleasure of having @peterwschafran.com as our invited guest sharing his knowledge on hornwort genomics.

A couple years ago @tarobison.bsky.social asked me what I thought of this isoform in my gene models and I said it was probably just a bad prediction. Never underestimate the weirdness in your data!

Our work on #hornwort #pyrenoids is finally out in @science.org! 🎉 We uncovered how hornworts pack their Rubisco into pyrenoids and successfully recreated them in Arabidopsis. A key step toward engineering more efficient photosynthesis in crops @btiscience.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

It's the funding of taxonomic research & training that's dying out. Without an ability to identify life forms, we can't recognize/quantify invasions & extinctions and their impacts on ecosystems. Imagine trying to repair a complex steel structure if you can't distinguish different types of bearings.

our hornwort paper got the cover of the @newphyt.bsky.social nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

📢 New publication 'Evolutionary history of sex and accessory chromosomes in #hornworts' by John Bowman and Jonathan Levins in @newphyt.bsky.social 🧪 doi.org/10.1111/nph....

It’s hard to believe our summer undergraduate researchers are wrapping up in just a few weeks! This summer of science has flown by. Catch up on their adventures in the lab, out in the field, around Ithaca, and beyond!

A little belated but I've started a faculty position at Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology department at @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social. I'm absolutely stoked! I'll be recruiting at all levels and will be at #Botany2025 Reach out! www.martinezgomezlab.com

This seems to work really well! Improved a draft genome with N50=0.5 Mb (flye 2.9.4/hifiasm-0.19.8), increased to N50=5 Mb (11 Mb after removing all the repetitive element contigs)

#Phylogenetics & population structure of the western North American endemic Pacific Laurasian clade of #Isoëtes New #AJB research by Forrest Freund, Daniel Gates, Matthew Johnson & @crothfels.bsky.social doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... #botany #plantscience #genetics #biogeography #evolution

Preprint on hifiasm Nanopore-only assembly. Led by Haoyu Cheng: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🎉 Great news! The paper ‘Distinct patterns of genome size evolution in each bryophyte lineage are not correlated with whole genome duplication’ in @annbot.bsky.social by Nikisha Patel and co-authors is now #free for a limited time 🧵(1/8) 👉 doi.org/pcjr @mossplants.bsky.social #AoBpapers

(2/2) Giant sex chromosomes were discovered in Silene latifolia more than 100 years ago. Two papers back to back now show the sequence of the 550 Mbp Silene Y chromosome helping to understand sex determination www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #plantscience

I am very proud of UMN Duluth undergrad Isabel Smalley, whose summer REU project led to co-authorship on her first paper, now out in Nature Plants! 🎉

Second paper of the year led by Peter Schafran from @fernway.bsky.social lab (Cornell University). Again hornworts rock !! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

First paper of the year, led by Tanner Robison from @fernway.bsky.social lab (Cornell University!). Hornworts rock!! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Paper #2 - we generated 10 new chr-level genomes for hornworts covering all families and most genera. Also the first look into their U/V sex chromosomes! 3/4 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Two new #hornwort papers from our group out in Nature Plants @natureplants.bsky.social today - a great way to celebrate the new year! 1/4

One thing yinz should all know is whenever you write a title of the form <Catchy Phrase> [colon] <Description Of What The Paper is About> I reserve the right to decide whether or not the phrase following the colon is interesting or informative enough to be worth the aesthetic cost to my bibliography

#Viewpoint: A #stomate by any other name? The open question of hornwort gametophytic pores, their homology, and implications for the #evolution of stomates James Paul Fortin and William E. Friedman 👇 📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #LatestIssue

Assembling the picture of stomatal #evolution 📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 👆 A #Commentary by James W. Clark on this article by James Paul Fortin & William E. Friedman 👇 📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... #LatestIssue

On the cover: Fluorescent paradermal confocal microscope section of three hornwort gametophytic pores (HGPs) in Phaeoceros carolinianus. Image courtesy of Faye M. Rosin and William E. Friedman. 📖 See Friedman & Fortin nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #LatestIssue