Intraspecific variations in seasonal phenology and growth physiology reflect adaptation to local climate. To explore the patterns of local adaptation along latitudinal and longitudinal clines, we used thirty-four populations of Salix eriocephala sourced from its natural ranges across Canada. The genotypes were examined for 6 phenology and 19 ecophysiology traits over two growing seasons under c...

The Brazilian Amazon is one of the most rapidly developing agricultural frontiers in the world. The authors assess changes in cropland area and the intensification of cropping in the Brazilian agricultural frontier state of Mato Grosso using remote sensing and develop a greenhouse gas emissions budget. The most common type of intensification in this region is a shift from singleto doublecroppin...

Established trees influence the growth and physiology of seedlings by altering above- and belowground conditions; however, tree influences on seedling physiology via belowground interactions are not well understood. We used soil transfers to an open field to examine the belowground influences of a Quercus ellipsoidalis E.J. Hill dominated forest on Q. ellipsoidalis seedling mycorrhizal infectio...

The Hawaiian Islands are an ideal location to study the response of tropical forests to climate variability because of their extreme isolation in the middle of the Pacific, which makes them especially sensitive to El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Most research examining the response of tropical forests to drought or El Niño have focused on rainforests, however, tropical dry forests cover a ...

Phenological events, such as bud burst, are strongly linked to ecosystem processes in temperate deciduous forests. However, the exact nature and magnitude of how seasonal and interannual variation in air temperatures influence phenology is poorly understood, and model-based phenology representations fail to capture local- to regional-scale variability arising from differences in species composi...

Accurate and up-to-date mapping and monitoring of rubber plantations is challenging. In this study, we presented a simple method for rapidly and accurately mapping rubber plantations in the Xishuangbanna region of southwest China using phenology-based vegetation index differencing. Temporal profiles of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Atmospher...

An enduring question in plant physiology and evolution is how single genotypes of plants optimize performance in diverse, often highly variable, environments. We grew 35 natural accessions of the grass Brachypodium distachyon in four environments in the glasshouse, contrasting soil water deficit, elevated temperature and their interaction. We modeled treatment, genotype and interactive effects ...

The joint interpretation of phenology and nutritional metabolism provides important data on plant tissues reactivity and the period of gall induction. A population of Aspidosperma macrocarpon (Apocynaceae) with leaf galls induced by a Pseudophacopteron sp. (Psylloidea) was studied in Goiás state, Brazil. Assuming the morphological similarity between host leaves and intralaminar galls, a gradien...

Several methods exist for extracting plant phenological information from time series of satellite data. However, there have been only a few successful attempts to temporarily match satellite observations (Land Surface Phenology or LSP) with ground based phenological observations (Ground Phenology or GP). The classical pixel to point matching problem along with the temporal and spatial resolutio...

The impact of a native, leaf-feeding chrysomelid beetle (Phaedon sp. nr. oviformis) on bittercress (Cardamine cordifolia: Cruciferae), was evaluated in an exclusion experiment. Multivariate statistical analysis showed a significant increase in plant performance in the rotenone exclusion compared to performance in the paired control treatment. Plant response to the reduction of herbivory was a c...