My first Nature paper

Posted on August 7, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Nature Gardening: Brief Communications
The Darwinian Approach to Solanum lycopersicum cultivation: preliminary results
Obligatory Cheesy Nature Paper Pun: No spray tom-ay-to, delay tom-ah-to
by
Ennis, MG and Ennis, CA^1^
Background: We investigated the effects of Darwinian gardening methods on the drought resistance and fruit quality of a common Solanum lycopersicum variety. Darwinian gardening can be defined as starting plants from seed or small plants, and letting the fittest plants survive with a minimum of investigator interference. This is the first published study to explicitly test the hypothesis that subjecting Solanum lycopersicum to Darwinian gardening techniques would allow the plants to survive periods of drought during the brief British Columbian dry season.
Methods: Following failed experiments with Solanum lycopersicum seeds during the last grant growing cycle, the current study used starting material consisting of plants of approximately 4 inches in height (Home Depot, Vancouver). Plants were kept indoors under a skylight and watered intermittently. Only the fittest seedlings (those that survived random Felis catus-induced gravity/impact stress trials: n=2) were transplanted into a larger outdoors container and kept in the sunniest possible spot of a South-facing garden that was shaded at various times of day by trees and buildings. Concomitant with seedling purchase, control plants were started from seed in the garden. Pisum sativum had performed well in previous Darwinian gardening trials and was chosen as a positive control. Cucumis sativus had not previously been subjected to Darwinian gardening in this laboratory and was chosen as the most-likely-to-be-negative control.
Watering frequency was increased shortly after transplantation to once daily (more or less), by watering can or natural methods depending on the weather. Once the first green fruit appeared on the plants, two periods of drought stress (5 days each, two weeks apart) were induced by leaving the plants un-watered while the investigators went camping pursued other studies. These periods were planned to coincide with the hottest and sunniest weather available to residents of Southwestern British Columbia. Daily watering was resumed upon the investigators’ return, and continued until the first ripe fruit was observed.
Results: As expected, Cucumis sativus had not produced fruit by the time of publication (data not shown), whereas several Pisum sativum plants survived the drought stress periods and produced good yields (Figure 1).

*Figure 1.* Solanum lycopersicum (left) and Pisum sativum (right) plants that were previously subjected to Darwinian gardening techniques produce quality food following drought stress. There was no significant difference between the positive control food items in this pod (p=5).
The Solanum lycopersicum plants naturally selected by subjection to gravity/impact and Darwinian gardening stresses not only survived the two periods of drought, but produced ripe fruit (Figure 1). Fruit was semi-quantitatively assayed for tastiness and pronounced “pretty good, actually” and “are you kidding, it’s bloody delicious” (n=1, assay performed simultaneously by two independent investigators). Score was found to show a positive correlation with the amount of effort expended by each investigator.
Conclusion: Natural selection by neglect (“Darwinian gardening”) results in Solanum lycopersicum plants that can tolerate periods of drought and produce bloody delicious tomatoes. Ongoing field trials will address the effects of ripe windfall fruit of the Prunus sp. tree on Solanum lycopersicum fruit ripening times in situ.
Acknowledgments: We would like to thank the laboratory’s two furry technicians for their contributions to the preliminary natural selection experiments. We also thank this manuscript’s previous reviewers for their comments, which have been helpful.
^1^Corresponding author. Please use comment box.

About Cath@VWXYNot?

"one of the sillier science bloggers [...] I thought I should give a warning to the more staid members of the community." - Bob O'Hara, December 2010
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18 Responses to My first Nature paper

  1. Mark Tummers says:
    August 7, 2008 at 5:18 am

    Dear Author of a Nature paper,
    I am in awe. My last manuscript submitted to Nature came back the next day. And that was not an acceptance. I congratulate you therefore on the successful publication of your interesting paper on the topic of Darwinian Gardening.
    I would like to request one Felis catus from your lab so I can repeat the experiments under similar conditions. I have noticed in the past that there is a lot of behavioural variation in these biological machines, probably due to the production methods involved in creating them.
    regards,
    M. Tummers

  2. Cath Ennis says:
    August 7, 2008 at 2:01 pm

    Dear Dr Tummers,
    Thank you for your congratulatory note. The trick is to publish in Nature without asking for Nature’s permission.
    I would be happy to temporarily loan one or more Felis catus to your laboratory. The Christmas holidays may be a good time as they will be in need of temporary employment while my staff and I visit the UK.
    Our group has tried to minimise inter-technician variability by utitilising full siblings, but substantial variation remains. I have previously published my findings on the genetic basis of furry technician variability; this paper also contains a comparison of the two technicians currently employed by the laboratory.
    The results of early Felis catus-induced gravity/impact stress experiments are also available in the literature, with the most striking result shown below.

    Thank you again for your interest in our work. Please do let me know your results as you attempt to unravel the reasons for some of the more bizarre feline behavioural patterns.

  3. Henry Gee says:
    August 7, 2008 at 4:00 pm

    When the Felis catus is away, the Mus musculus will play. Harumph.

  4. Cath Ennis says:
    August 7, 2008 at 4:48 pm

    What about the Cavia porcellus?

  5. Anna Kushnir says:
    August 7, 2008 at 6:47 pm

    I am pleased that web2.0 technologies for scientists played a lively role in your study design – I refer of course, to community commenting on the pre-print archive of your preliminary data.
    Many thanks for this proof of principle.
    Sincerely,
    Unwittingly thankful Nature staff. Err, intern.

  6. Cath Ennis says:
    August 7, 2008 at 8:21 pm

    Yes, the web2.0 format not only improved our study design, but also the quality of our results (n=1). I am hoping to analyse the second sample (currently changing colour) within a week and am hoping to be able to reproduce our initial results.
    The courgettes (zucchinis) are very tasty too, but are outside the scope of the current study.

  7. Mark Tummers says:
    August 8, 2008 at 8:48 am

    I hope your next publication in Nature will be a full article. I have noticed that the university administrative unit here is more impressed with a Nature article than Nature letter. Needless to say the actual content of the publications is never weighed in these assessments.
    I’m not sure how they would rate the ‘brief communication’ as published here. May it be a stepping stone to Nature ‘articleness’ and ‘impact’ excellence.

  8. Cath Ennis says:
    August 8, 2008 at 2:52 pm

    It’s all about setting achievable goals.

  9. Ian Brooks says:
    August 8, 2008 at 4:27 pm

    Absolutely brill Cath! LMAO!
    The trick is to publish in Nature without asking for Nature’s permission.
    Genius!
    And Anna’s acceptance letter was great! How does it feel Anna… can you feel the evil powers coursing through your veins?

  10. Anna Kushnir says:
    August 8, 2008 at 5:20 pm

    It is rather exhilarating.
    And by that I mean, No Comment.

  11. Cath Ennis says:
    August 8, 2008 at 8:20 pm

    Ian, glad I made you LYAO!
    Anna, I bow to you…

  12. Cath Ennis says:
    August 8, 2008 at 8:23 pm

    p.s. the image I attempted to link to in my first comment on this thread is available here. It showed up OK in Firefox at home, but doesn’t seem to work in IE6 at work(don’t laugh, we’re not given a choice).

  13. Bob O'Hara says:
    August 9, 2008 at 5:27 am

    I would have commented earlier, but I was consumed by envy.
    Plus I really had nothing to say.

  14. Cath Ennis says:
    August 12, 2008 at 12:51 am

    I would have replied to your comment earlier, but I was consumed by performance anxiety. How could I possibly follow that?!

  15. Raf Aerts says:
    August 20, 2008 at 2:43 pm

    p=5
    Brilliant!

  16. Cath Ennis says:
    August 20, 2008 at 5:06 pm

    Thanks Raf! I was wondering if anyone (Bob?) would pick up on that…

  17. Raf Aerts says:
    August 22, 2008 at 3:57 pm

    P=5, really, I was laughing out loud at my desk.
    Bob doesn’t like peas.

  18. Cath Ennis says:
    August 24, 2008 at 12:17 am

    I aim to peas.

Comments are closed.