69 Results Found

Research Highlights: The effects of climate change on habitat loss, range shift and/or genetic impoverishment of mid-elevation plants has received less attention compared to alpine species. Moreover, genetic diversity patterns of mountain forest herb...

We investigated early survival, growth, and carbon isotope discrimination of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Lawson & C. Lawson var. scopulorum Engelm.) seedlings from different provenances using common gardens across an elevational gradient in o...

Elucidating changes in the structure and function of plant communities along different elevation ranges will help researchers to analyze the strategies plant communities use in environments and processes influencing niche differentiation. The aims of...

With invasive grasses increasing wildfire occurrence worldwide, a better understanding of the relationships between native plants, fire, and invasive grass is needed to help restoration plans facilitate ecosystem resilience. Invasive grasses are part...

Elevation gradients are used as a proxy to simulate climate change effects. A field study was conducted along an elevational gradient in Nepal to understand the effects of abiotic conditions on agriculturally important insect herbivore populations (t...

Purple passion fruit (Passiflora edulis Sims f. edulis) is a tropical juice source. The goal of this project was to evaluate photosynthetic and physiological variability for the crop with the hypotheses that landraces contain the diversity to adapt t...

An environmental chamber is a specialistic device used for testing effects of given controlled conditions on a variety of objects. In case of plant growth chambers, the conditions are controlled usually for plant cultivation and propagation or botani...

Biodeterioration, the alteration of materials by living organisms, affects approximately two-thirds of the world’s cultural heritage. When organisms colonize the surfaces, they induce physical and chemical changes that can lead to significant d...

The study of elevational patterns is a valuable method for inferring the influence of the climate and other variables in the regional distributions of species. Bryophytes are ideal for revealing different environmental patterns in elevational studies...

Untangling the multiple drivers that affect biodiversity along elevation gradients is crucial for predicting the consequences of climate change on mountain ecosystems. However, the distribution patterns of microorganisms along elevation gradients hav...

Desert plants in arid regions are facing escalating challenges from global warming, underscoring the urgent need to predict shifts in the distribution and habitats of dominant species under future climate scenarios. This study employed the Maximum En...

Invasive species represent a significant threat to biodiversity and ecosystem conservation, with their impacts often amplified in island ecosystems. Species distribution models (SDMs) can infer the potential habitat throughout the life of an organism...

The elevational range where montane species live is a key factor of spatial niche partitioning, because the limits of such ranges are influenced by interspecies interaction, abiotic stress, and dispersal barriers. At the regional scale, unimodal dist...

Climate change is one of the most prominent factors influencing the spatial distribution of plants in China, including gymnosperms. Climatic factors influence gymnosperm distribution along elevational gradients on the Qinghai–Xizang (Tibet) Pla...

The Toledo Mountains are a mid-elevation mountain range that separates the Tagus and Guadiana basins in the central area of the Iberian Peninsula. The location of these mountains allows the development of typical Mediterranean vegetation with some At...

Northern protected areas guard against habitat and species loss but are themselves highly vulnerable to environmental change due to their fixed spatial boundaries. In the low Arctic, Torngat Mountains National Park (TMNP) of Canada, widespread greeni...

The Midlands region of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Province in South Africa was hitherto a putative centre of floristic endemism (CFE) based on conjecture. The aim of this study was to empirically explore this concept by delineating unambiguous boundaries fo...

As the largest terrestrial carbon pool, forest ecosystems play a pivotal role in climate change mitigation through greenhouse gas regulation. This study estimated the carbon sequestration potential of arbor forests at the county-level scale in Mentou...

Understanding the patterns and drivers of species distribution has remained a central theme for biogeographical, conservation, and ecological research. This study aims to investigate the elevational patterns of plant species richness and compare the...

We analyzed elevational species richness gradients (“decline”, “increase”, “unimodal”, or “bimodal”) in the Himalayan range using data from 157 publications covering both plants and animals. Our study t...

Climate change is altering the abundance and distributions of natural communities in mountainous ecosystems, but the variations of soil microbial communities and their driving factors along elevation gradients at high altitudinal mid-subtropical zone...

The structure and distribution patterns of Himalayan vegetation are poorly explored, and research on species composition along the elevation gradient in these mountain ranges is still deficient. The current study was undertaken to analyze the variati...

The effects of CO2 enrichment on plant growth and on nitrogen partitioning were examined using soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr. cv. Clark] leaflets. Plants were grown from single seeds in matching controlled environment chambers. Continuous ambient CO...

In the subtropical zone of southern China, there was a considerable conversion of forests from deciduous to evergreen broadleaf in the early Holocene. However, the exact timing of this vegetation change and its relationship to climate are still uncle...

A field experiment was carried out in Lebanon to assess the agronomic and essential oil characteristics of cannabis as affected by sowing date and irrigation practice. The experiment consisted of a split-plot design with the water regime being the ma...

Sub-optimal light environments in controlled agricultural settings often limit the productivity of plants. While LED supplementary lighting has been widely adopted to mitigate light deficiencies, the spatial arrangement of LED light sources remains a...

Three different altitudes were selected to study the variability of terpenoid composition from leaves of female plants of Pistacia lentiscus L. throughout the elevation gradient. GC-MS analyses showed that terpenoid contents change with altitude. For...

Non-crop vegetation around farmland can be valuable habitats for enhancing ecosystem services but little is known of the importance of field margins in supporting natural enemies of insect pests in tropical agriculture. This study was conducted in sm...

Insects and pathogenic infections (bacteria, viruses and fungi) cause huge losses in agriculturally important crops yearly. Due to the rise in pesticide and antibiotic resistance, our crops and livestock are increasingly at risk. There is a rising de...

Amaryllis belladonna is an autumn-flowering bulbous geophyte endemic to the Western Cape, South Africa. The species’ erratic flowering disposition and brief flowering period upon maturity limit its economic productivity and competitiveness with...

Poplars are essential tree species with critical roles in wood production, ecological conservation, environmental protection, and climate change mitigation. Plants of different poplar populations exhibit varying responses to biotic and abiotic stress...

The Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) is known for its complex topography of hills and gullies, and lots of human land-use management activities have been put into practice to sustain the soil, water and other natural resources. Afforestation has been wide...

High-mountain and arctic plants are considered especially sensitive to climate change because of their close adaptation to the cold environment. Kalmia procumbens, a typical arctic–alpine species, reaches southernmost European localities in the...

Ochroma lagopus, a fast-growing tropical tree species, faces fertilization challenges due to slope heterogeneity in plantations. This study examined 3-year-old Ochroma lagopus at upper and lower slope positions under five treatments: CK (no fertilize...

Climate and geological diversity have been proven to make an important contribution to biodiversity. Volcanic ecosystems often have a long geological history and diverse bedrock, thus shaping a variety of habitats. Understanding the relative importan...

Warming is expected to intensify hydrological processes and reshape precipitation regimes, which is closely related to water availability for terrestrial ecosystems. Effects of the inter-annual precipitation changes on plant growth are widely concern...

We report on the continuous ambient measurements of total gaseous mercury (TGM) and several ancillary air quality parameters that were collected in Colorado Springs, CO. This urban area, which is located adjacent to the Front Range of the Rocky Mount...

High-mountain ecosystems are spots of plant diversity in which species composition and traits depict a long evolutionary history of species adaptation to steep environmental gradients. We investigated the main trends in plant species composition and...

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are thought to be potential incubators of antibiotic resistance. Persistence of commonly used antibiotics in wastewater may increase the potential for selection of resistance genes transferred between bacterial pop...

The impact of elevated CO2 (eCO2) on plant–pollinator interactions is poorly understood. This study provides the first systematic review of this topic and identifies important knowledge gaps. In addition, we present field data assessing the impact of...

Urban streams are heavily influenced by human activity. One way that this occurs is through the reintroduction of treated effluent from wastewater treatment plants. We measured the microbial community composition of water, sediment, and soil at sites...

Spring frost damage (SFD), defined as the disaster during the period of newly formed tea buds in spring caused by lower temperature and frost damage, is a particular challenge for tea plants (Camellia sinensis), whose capacity to adapt to extreme wea...

Invasive plant species are increasingly altering species composition and the functioning of ecosystems from a local to a global scale. The grass species Pennisetum setaceum has recently raised concerns as an invader on different archipelagos worldwid...

Coffee leaf rust (CLR, Hemileia vastatrix) is considered the most damaging coffee disease worldwide, causing reduced yields and even plant death. CLR was detected in Hawaii for the first time in 2020, and quickly spread across the state. We initiated...

An analysis of the current potential range of the Pleistocene relict plant species Schoenus ferrugineus and modeling of changes in its future range under moderate (RCP4.5) and strong (RCP8.5) climate change in the middle and second half of the 21st c...

Successful use of woody species in reducing climatic and environmental risks of energy shortage and spreading pollution requires deeper understanding of the physiological functions controlling biomass productivity and phytoremediation efficiency. Tar...

Plant species and abiotic factors including season appear to be the most important variables influencing the frequency of visits by honeybees (Apis mellifera L.). In the present study, we evaluated the activity of honeybee workers visiting runner bea...

Background. Since the mid-20th century, massive dieback of coniferous forests has been observed in the temperate and boreal zones across North America and Northern Eurasia. The first hypotheses explaining forest dieback were associated with industria...

We investigated community structure and tree species diversity of six subtropical mountain forests in relation to 11 topographical and edaphic factors in Lower Lancang River Basin, Yunnan Province, China, based on a census of all trees with diameter...

Potato seed tubers are a valuable product in potato agriculture. Over the years, studies have been conducted to increase the fraction of mid-size tubers, which are used as a planting material, within the general pool of tuber sizes. Gibberellic acid...