Caragana korshinskii, a leguminous shrub, a common specie, is widely planted to prevent soil erosion on the Loess Plateau. The objective of this study was to determine how the plantation ages affected soil, leaf and root nutrients and ecological stoichiometry. The chronosequence ages of C. korshinskii plantations selected for this study were 10, 20 and 30 years. Soil organic carbon (SOC) and so...

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is the leading monogenic cause of autism and intellectual disability. The disease arises through loss of fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP), which normally exhibits peak expression levels in early-use critical periods, and is required for activity-dependent synaptic remodeling during this transient developmental window. FMRP canonically binds mRNA to repress pr...

1. Invasive species are present worldwide, yet predicting which invasive species will become problematic in which ecosystems remains an important ecological challenge. Floodplains are at particular risk for invasion, especially when subjected to anthropogenic disturbance. 2. We examined how components of flood regime, habitat quality and habitat configuration influenced the presence and abundan...

Shrub encroachment is a worldwide phenomenon with implications for desertification and global change. We evaluated its effects on the activities of urease, phosphatase and b-glucosidase in Mediterranean semiarid grasslands dominated by Stipa tenacissima by sampling 12 sites with and without resprouting shrubs along a climatic gradient. The presence of shrubs affected the evaluated enzymes at di...

To examine Late Quaternary vegetation change across the modern vegetation gradient from continuous boreal forest (central Alaska) to Betula shrub tundra (Bristol Bay region), pollen records from Idavain and Snipe Lakes are described and compared to those of four other sites in southwest Alaska. Major features of the vegetation history at Idavain Lake include herb-dominated tundra (ca. 14}12 ka ...

BIOTIC INTERACTIONS INFLUENCING SHRUB ESTABLISHMENT ON AN ATLANTIC COAST BARRIER ISLAND. Elucidating mechanisms influencing the establishment of woody species is essential for understanding community dynamics and successional processes on barrier islands. The relative intensity of facilitation and inhibition of grasses on seedling establishment of two woody species common to Atlantic Coast barr...

We sampled shrub canopy volume (height times area) and environmental factors (soil wetness, soil depth of thaw, soil pH, mean July air temperature, and typical date of spring snow loss) on 471 plots across five National Park Service units in northern Alaska. Our goal was to determine the environments where tall shrubs thrive and use this information to predict the location of future shrub expan...

A new method is described for the retrieval of fractional cover of large woody plants (shrubs) at the landscape scale using moderate resolution multi-angle remote sensing data from the Multiangle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) and a hybrid geometric-optical (GO) canopy reflectance model. Remote sensing from space is the only feasible method for regularly mapping woody shrub cover over large a...