The low level of plant nutrients in exposed high-altitude subsoils, aod the effects of soil frost and needle ice on plants attempting to colonise these subsoils combine to make natural revegetation very difficult. Artificial revegetation trials established in 1965 at three sites in the Canterbury mountains tested the effect of a fertiliser mixture \vhich suppJied a wide range of nutrients, and ...

Urban ecosystems are an increasingly dominant feature of terrestrial landscapes. While evidence that species can adapt to urban environments is accumulating, the mechanisms through which urbanization imposes natural selection on populations are poorly understood. The identification of adaptive phenotypic changes (i.e. clines) along urbanization gradients would facilitate our understanding of th...

Weedy plants may have unique functional traits that distinguish them from other species. We categorized four annual plant species as weedy and five as non-weedy based on their prevalence in disturbed and invaded environments. This designation was tested in a field trial where we scattered equal numbers of viable seeds in 20 different plots and monitored density and cover over three months. The ...

Endemism and species richness are highly relevant to the global prioritization of conservation efforts in which oceanic islands have remained relatively neglected. When compared to mainland areas, oceanic islands in general are known for their high percentage of endemic species but only moderate levels of species richness, prompting the question of their relative conservation value. Here we qua...

Plant-frugivore networks play a key role in the regeneration of sub-tropical forest ecosystems. However, information about the impact of habitat characteristics on plant-frugivore networks in fragmented forests is scarce. We investigated the importance of fruit abundance, fruiting plant species richness and canopy cover within habitat fragments for the structure and robustness of plant-frugivor...

Studies suggest that populations of different species do not decline equally after habitat loss. However, empirical tests have been confined to fine spatiotemporal scales and have rarely included plants. Using data from 89,365 forest survey plots covering peninsular Spain, we explored, for each of 34 common tree species, the relationship between probability of occurrence and the local cover of ...

Since density is considered as one of the most important numerical indices to explain quantitative values of a plant community by affecting on many aspects and activity of ecosystem, on the other hand, awareness about plants distribution pattern in environment is an essential preparation for measurement and study of vegetative cover, therefore, in this research determination of density and dist...

Algorithms relating remotely sensed woody cover to biomass are often the basis for large-scale inventories of aboveground carbon stocks. However, these algorithms are commonly applied in a generic fashion without consideration of disturbances that might alter vegetation structure. We compared field and remote sensing estimates of woody biomass on savannas with contrasting disturbance (fire) his...

Hikers and livestock using mountain trails damage native vegetation act as seed vectors, thus favouring the spread of non-native plants. We evaluated effect abundance on success plants in arid central Andes Argentina. surveyed six trails, covering elevations between 2400 3570 m a.s.l. recorded transects distributed along elevational gradient spanning distances up to 22 from trail. assessed how ...

Communities of plants, biological soil crusts (BSCs), and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are known to influence soil stability individually, but their relative contributions, interactions, and combined effects are not well understood, particularly in arid and semiarid ecosystems. In a landscape-scale field study we quantified plant, BSC, and AM fungal communities at 216 locations along a gra...