When the eXtremeplants website went “live” almost two years ago, we were happy with what we had started, but were by no means thinking the site was finished. We had, at that time, only introductory pages to 4 “models and systems” – the various relatives of Arabidopsis thaliana, halophytes, mangroves and resurrection plants. Within each of these we had completed only one or two species in any detail. That wasn’t not much, really. There wasn’t much here about cryophytes. There was nothing about xerophytes, or hyperaccumulators, or thermophiles, or epiphytes, or who knows what. We hadn’t even started assembling pages about mosses or ferns (and as of January 2019, we still haven’t). There was nothing about symbiosis or soil microbiology or any number of other trending topics.
But as you dig around the site and see what we have done, you may have a better idea of what we should or could do.
That is where you come in. Please accept this as a formal solicitation and a heartfelt plea for help. We need:
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- words – things to incorporate into pages on models/systems and species… papers and websites that can be used as sources for the backstories.
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- specifics – on genome resources that might not just pop up with an NCBI search, but which would give readers a good introduction to the most valuable or extensive resources available.
- your photos – of the various plants, preferably in natural settings with backgrounds that put the plants in their ecological context (not a Petri dish or pot). Plant IDs and captions would be lovely.
So please – us. Offer stuff. Send us stuff. Your efforts will be gratefully acknowledged. And who knows, you can probably put it on your resumé as “outreach” or community service.
Thanks.
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