the zinnia (zinnia elegans j.) flower has many applications in landscape design, whereas lack of adequate conditions and nutritions in some cases can reduce the quality and number of flowers. therefore, control of growth conditions is very important related to nutrition and application of growth regulators to improve the quality and quantity of flowers. flower's morphology and longevity are two...

Plant traits are the key factors that determine herbivore foraging selection. The traits serving as defense traits against herbivores represent a wide range of traits, such as chemical, physiological, morphological and life-history traits. While many studies considered plant defense traits at the within-species scale, much less is known from comparisons of a wide range of closely related specie...

Human disturbance has disrupted the dynamics of plant communities. To restore these dynamics, we could take advantage of the microclimatic conditions generated by remaining patches of vegetation and plastic mulch. These microclimatic conditions might have great importance in restoring disturbed lava fields located south of Mexico City, where the rock is exposed and the soil is shallow. We evalu...

The phenomenon that rhizosphere processes significantly control soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition, also termed rhizosphere priming effect (RPE), is now increasingly recognized as significant as the effects of soil temperature and moisture on SOM decomposition. However, the exact mechanisms responsible for RPE remain largely unknown. Particularly, some reports have suggested that the quali...

1. Species diversity can affect many ecological processes; much less is known about the importance of population genetic diversity, particularly for the population dynamics of associated species. Genetic diversity within a host species can create habitat diversity; when associated species move among hosts, this variation could affect populations additively (an effect of average habitat) or non-...