One hundred and fourteen species belonging to 29 genera of Araceae are recorded from Sabah: Aglaonema Schott, Alocasia (Schott) G.Don, Amorphophallus Blume ex Decne., Amydrium Anadendrum Arisaema Mart., Bucephalandra Colobogynium Colocasia Cryptocoryne Fisch. Wydler, Cyrtosperma Griff., Epipremnum Gamogyne N.E.Br., Homalomena Lasia Lour., Lemna L., Nabalu S.Y.Wong & P.C.Boyce, Ooia Phym...

Taro, Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott, is the most important species from the Araceae family. The leaf area (LA) is important for the interception of solar radiation and for the biomass production. The light extinction coefficient (k) is related to the leaf inclination angle, leaf arrangement, regarding the Leaf Area Index (LAI), providing an indication of the plants efficiency on intercepting ...

Amorphophallus konjac is an herbaceous tuber crop with tremendous potential for commercial development. We report the development of microsatellite primers for this important crop species. Thirteen polymorphic microsatellite markers were developed and tested in two populations of A. konjac from the Wuling Mountain Region (WL population) and the Yunnan Province (YN population) in China. The numb...

Vascular epiphytes constitute a life form that is important to maintaining the biological diversity of forest ecosystems, because they provide food resources and specialized microenvironments for fauna in the forest canopy. This study aimed to describe the floristic composition and ecological aspects of vascular epiphytes occurring in the restingas (coastal woodlands) within the Algodoal-Maiand...

This study aimed to characterize the structure of the herb stratum in relation to light availability in the Submontane Atlantic Rain Forest at the Carlos Botelho State Park, SP, Brazil. Fortyone 10 x10 m plots were established under the closed canopy (18 plots), small and medium canopy gaps (11) and large canopy gaps dominated by Guadua tagoara (Ness) Kunth (12). Inside each plot, the line inte...

A 3,000 m2 area of seasonally inundated forest on the island of Ilha do Mel (25 degrees 30" S 48 degrees 23" W) in Paraná, Brazil, was sampled by collecting plants from all strata, using climbing equipment when necessary. The area harbors 103 species of epiphytes, in 49 genera and 20 families, of which 28 species are pteridophytes and 75 magnoliophytes (64 Liliopsida, 11 Magnoliopsida). The mos...

Performance of the specialist herbivore Spodoptera pectinicomis (Hampson) was studied when fed the floating aquatic plant waterlettuce, Pistia stratiotes L. (Araceae). Plants were either collected from 6 populations in southern Florida or from plants grown with low or high fertilizer levels. Consumption of leaves with increasing toughness resulted in increased larval mortality (>80%); most mort...

Pistia stratiotes is an aquatic macrophyte that grows in temporary-ponds in the southern Pantanal, Brazil. It reproduces both sexually and asexually and is usually observed forming dense mats on the water surface, a condition favored by the plant's vegetative reproduction coupled with an ability for rapid growth. In this study we examined the effect of densely crowded conditions on the producti...

Pollinators have long been known to select for floral traits, but the nature of this relationship has been little investigated in trap pollination systems. We investigated the trapping devices of 15 Arum spp. and compared them with the types of insects trapped. Most species shared a similar general design of trap chamber walls covered in downward-pointing papillate cells, lacunose cells in the ...