Western Australia's Mysterious Underground Orchid Revealed

[click image for slideshow]

View of the Rhizanthella gardneri capitulum with its shoot emerging from the deeply buried bulb.

Close up of the individual flowers in a dark Rhizanthella gardneri capitulum.

Close up of the individual flowers in a white Rhizanthella gardneri capitulum.

partially closed Rhizanthella gardneri capitulums right after their discovery.

fully open Rhizanthella gardneri capitulum at the base of a Melaleuca uncinata trunk.

purification of genomic DNA from Rhizanthella gardneri

Another view of the Rhizanthella gardneri capitulum with its shoot emerging from the deeply buried bulb

Rhizanthella gardneri plastid genome. Exons are displayed as blue arrows, introns as lines joining exons. tRNAs as black triangles, rRNAs in red. inverted repeats as yellow arrows and fragments or pseudogenes in orange. Ψ: pseudogenes. frag: fragment.

Rhizanthella gardneri is a cute, quirky and critically endangered orchid that lives all its life underground. It even blooms underground, making it virtually unique amongst plants. Last year, using radioactive tracers, scientists at The University of Western Australia showed that the orchid gets all its nutrients by parasitising fungi associated with the roots of broom bush, a woody shrub of the WA outback. Now, with less than 50 individuals left in the wild, Plant Energy Biology scientists have made a timely and remarkable discovery about its genome.

Publication:

Sota Fujii Awarded:

Plant Energy Biology Research Associate Dr Sota Fujii is off to a terrific start in 2011. Following on from his recent publication (Full Text) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), he has won both a Japanese research award and a fellowship to continue his valuable work in plant genetics.

Dr Fujii was selected from 300 agricultural scientists for the position of "Super Postdoctoral Fellow" by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). The fellowship is funded by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture.

I will do my best to use this precious money from Japanese Taxpayers to contribute to the advancement of life science at global level, like my hero Dr. Barbara McClintock,

Dr Fujii's research on restorer to fertility genes in plants has also earned him a Inoue Research Award for Young Scientists. This prize for early career scientists highlights the great work being done by this promising young researcher.