Mercury (Hg) in autumn litterfall from predominately deciduous forests was measured in 3 years of samples from 23 Mercury Deposition Network sites in 15 states across the eastern USA. Annual litterfall Hg dry deposition was significantly higher (median 12.3 micrograms per square meter (μg/m(2)), range 3.5-23.4 μg/m(2)) than annual Hg wet deposition (median 9.6 μg/m(2), range 4.4-19.7 μg/m(2)). ...

Plant cover loss due to changes in land use promotes a decrease in spore diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), viable mycelium and, therefore, in AMF colonization, this has an influence in community diversity and, as a consequence, in its recovery. To evaluate different AMF propagules, nine plots in a tropical dry forest with secondary vegetation were selected: 0, 1, 7, 10, 14, 18, 2...

The response of vegetation distribution, carbon, and fire to three scenarios of future climate change was simulated for California using the MC1 Dynamic General Vegetation Model. Under all three scenarios, Alpine/Subalpine Forest cover declined, and increases in the productivity of evergreen hardwoods led to the displacement of Evergreen Conifer Forest by Mixed Evergreen Forest. Grassland expan...

In the course of a taxonomic revision of Pseudobombax Dugand, one of us (JGCS) frequently has observed herbarium specimens of Bombacoideae that comprise a mixture of different Angiosperm families. In particular, Pseudobombax heteromorphum (Kuntze) A. Robyns, a frequent name in checklists of the Bolivian flora, is based on type material of Bombax heteromorphum Kuntze that is clearly a mixture of...

Assessing the status of tropical dry forest habitats using remote sensing technologies is one of the research priorities for Neotropical forests. We developed a simple method for mapping vegetation and habitats in a tropical dry forest reserve, Mona Island, Puerto Rico, by integrating the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from Landsat, topographic information, and high-resolution Ik...

This study was undertaken to quantify the nutrient turnover and soil fertility status in the natural forests of Central Western Ghats. Major nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium were analyzed in the litter, both from the samples collected in pre and post monsoon seasons. There was no much difference seen in the values between the two seasons studied in all the three nutrients st...

In order to achieve the predicted speed, high accuracy, the use of simple purpose, forest fire prediction of the key issues is to choose the main predictors. Forest fire prediction involves many factors, some of which are stable factors such as climate, topography, forest characteristics; and some unstable factors, such as fuel moisture content, meteorological factors, and other sources of igni...

While forest evapotranspiration (ET) dynamics in the Amazon have been studied both as point estimates using flux towers, as well as spatially coarse surfaces using satellite data, higher resolution (e.g., 30 m resolution) ET estimates are necessary to address finer spatial variability associated with forest biophysical characteristics and their changes by natural and human impacts. The objectiv...

Cavitation resistance is a critical determinant of drought tolerance in tropical tree species, but little is known of its association with life history strategies, particularly for seasonal dry forests, a system critically driven by variation in water availability. We analysed vulnerability curves for saplings of 13 tropical dry forest tree species differing in life history and leaf phenology. ...

The genus Pyrrhura includes small to medium-sized parakeets, which inhabit both low and dry alongside tall rainforests, mainly in South America. Pyrrhura molinae is still common, year round, in the markedly seasonal forests of western Brazil. This parakeet, as well as most Neotropical parrots, continues to be poorly understood. Hence, in the present study I examined their foraging ecology both ...