Coexistence theory has often treated environmental heterogeneity as being independent of the community composition; however biotic feedbacks such as plant-soil feedbacks (PSF) have large effects on plant performance, and create environmental heterogeneity that depends on the community composition. Understanding the importance of PSF for plant community assembly necessitates understanding of the...

Soil disturbance is recognized as an important driver of biodiversity in dry grasslands, and can therefore be implemented as a restoration measure. However, because community re-assembly following disturbance includes stochastic processes, a focus only on species richness or establishment success of particular species will not inform on how plant communities respond ecologically to disturbance....

the mountainous area of fereizi is located in northwestern binalood range, khorassan, north east of iran. special climatic and geographical characteristics of the area make it a suitable habitat for various plant species. as a part of a research poject on the flora and vegetation of binalood mountain range, the floristic composition of this area, life forms and chorology of vascular plants have...

Variation in nectar chemistry among plants, flowers, or individual nectaries of a given species has been only rarely explored, yet it is an essential aspect to our understanding of how pollinator-mediated selection might act on nectar traits. This paper describes variation in nectar sugar composition in a population of the perennial herb Helleborus foetidus (Ranunculaceae) and dissects it into ...

Fragmentation of once widespread communities may alter interspecific interactions by changing genetic composition of interacting populations as well as their abundances and spatial distributions. In a long-term study of a fragmented population of Echinacea angustifolia, a perennial plant native to the North American prairie, we investigated influences on its interaction with a specialist aphid ...

0169-5347/99/$ – see front matter © 1999 Elsevier Science. All rights reserved. PII: S0169-5347(98)01505-5 5 significant long-term changes in nutrient mineralization, which causes major and often unexpected changes in plant species composition. Combined with Foster and Gross’s observation about the strong effects of litter on plant species establishment, these results imply that litter producti...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal (AMF) community assembly during primary succession has so far received little attention. It remains therefore unclear, which of the factors, driving AMF community composition, are important during ecosystem development. We addressed this question on a large spoil heap, which provides a mosaic of sites in different successional stages under different managements. We...

The introduction of photosynthates through plant roots is a major source of carbon (C) for soil microbial biota and shapes the composition of fungal and bacterial communities in the rhizosphere. Although the importance of this process, especially to ectomycorrhizal fungi, has been known for some time, the extent to which plant belowground C allocation controls the composition of the wider soil ...

background and objectives: helichrysum oligocephalum dc. (compositae)  is an endemic plant in iran that has been recommended by iranian traditional and folk medicine practitioners for gastrointestinal complaints. the plant is rich in essential oil and in the present investigation, the volatile composition of the species has been determined. methods: the light yellow essential oil from the aeria...