Antioxidant activity of six Brassica crops-broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, nabicol and tronchuda cabbage-was measured at four plant stages with DPPH and FRAP assays. Samples taken three months after sowing showed the highest antioxidant activity. Kale crop possessed the highest antioxidant activity at this plant stage and also at the adult plant stage, while cauliflower showed the highest...

Phenotypes and behaviors respond to resource constraints via adaptation, but the influence of ecological limitations on the composition of eukaryotic genomes is still unclear. We trace connections between plant ecology and genomes through their elemental composition. Inorganic sources of nitrogen (N) are severely limiting to plants in natural ecosystems. This constraint would favor the use of N...

We examined whether the intense root competition in a rough fescue grassland plant community in central Alberta, Canada, was important in structuring plant species diversity or community composition. We measured competition intensity across gradients of species richness, evenness, and community composition, using pairs of naturally occurring plants of 12 species. One plant in each pair was isol...

A terrestrial plant community is best described by its composition and dynamics. It is most important to know for each plant speciesits numbers, the area covered by it, its rate of reproduction, and its longevity. It is also important to know how soon adult plants are replaced by their young or other species and the frequency with which one species occurs relative to others in the community. Al...

BACKGROUND Studies on plant communities in the Amazon have reported that different hydro-edaphic conditions can affect the richness and the species composition of different ecosystems. However, this aspect is poorly known in the different savanna habitats. Understanding how populations and plant communities are distributed in these open vegetation areas is important to improve the knowledge abo...

A growing body of empirical work suggests that soil organisms can exert a strong role in plant community dynamics and may contribute to the coexistence of plant species. Some of this evidence comes from examining the feedback on plant growth through changes in the composition of the soil community. Host specific changes in soil community composition can generate feedback on plant growth and thi...

Disturbance is a primary mechanism structuring ecological communities. However, human activity has the potential to alter the frequency and intensity of natural disturbance regimes, with subsequent effects on ecosystem processes. In Southern California, human development has led to increased fire frequency close to urban areas that can form a positive feedback with invasive plant spread. Unders...

Although recent research indicates that herbivores interact with plant-associated microbes in complex ways, few studies have examined these interactions using a community approach. For example, the impact of herbivory on the community structure of ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) is not well known. The influence of host plant genetics on EMF community composition is also poorly understood. We used a...

To examine the relationship between plant species composition and microbial community diversity and structure, we carried out a molecular analysis of microbial community structure and diversity in two field experiments. In the first experiment, we examined bacterial community structure in bulk and rhizosphere soils in fields exposed to different plant diversity treatments, via a 16S rRNA gene c...

The phyllosphere of plants is inhabited by diverse microorganisms, however, the factors shaping their community composition are not fully elucidated. The plant cuticle represents the initial contact surface between microorganisms and the plant. We thus aimed to investigate whether mutations in the cuticular wax biosynthesis would affect the diversity of the phyllosphere microbiota. A set of fou...