Invasive plants often experience rapid changes in biological interactions by escaping from their original herbivores at their new habitats, and sometimes re-associating with those herbivores afterwards. However, little is known about whether the temporal changes in herbivorous impact work as a selective agent for defensive traits of invaded plants. Solidago altissima (goldenrod) is a North Amer...

Neuraphes (Pararaphes) mephistopheles n. sp. from Nepal (Taplejung), and N. (P.) qinghaiensis n. sp. from China (Qinghai) are described, illustrated, and compared to allied species. K e y w o r d s : Coleoptera, Staphylinidae, Scydmaeninae, Neuraphes, Pararaphes, Himalaya, Nepal, Tibet, China, taxonomy, new species. Z u s a m m e n f a s s u n g Neuraphes (Pararaphes) mephistopheles n. sp. aus ...

Host-associated mating is crucial in maintaining the partial reproductive isolation between the host races of Eurosta solidaginis (Diptera: Tephritidae), a fly that forms galls on Solidago altissima and S. gigantea. (We refer to flies reared from S. gigantea as gigantea flies and those reared from S. altissima as altissima flies.) We measured the host preference of males and females of both hos...

Ailanthus altissima and Robina pseudoacacia are two successful invasive species of floodplains in central Spain. We aim to explain their success as invaders in this habitat by exploring their phenological pattern, vegetative and sexual reproductive growth, and allometric relations, comparing them with those of the dominant native tree Populus alba. During a full annual cycle we follow the timin...

Invasive exotic plants can persist and successfully spread within ecosystems and negatively affect the recruitment of native species. The exotic invasive Ailanthus altissima and the native Robinia pseudoacacia are frequently found in disturbed sites and exhibit similar growth and reproductive characteristics, yet each has distinct functional roles such as allelopathy and nitrogen fixation, resp...

In addition to pollinator fig wasps, there are several non-pollinating fig wasps associated with monoecious Ficus sp. In order to understand how pollinator fig wasps and non-pollinating fig wasps are distributed across the same syconium, the spatial distribution of fig wasps associated with Ficus altissima and F. benjamina were compared using the pedicle lengths of galls containing each species...

Ailanthus altissima Swingle (Simaroubaceae) is commonly known as “Tree of heaven”. The methanolic extract of root bark of A. altissima (MEA) was taken for anti-diarrhoeal activity. Investigations were carried out on castor oil induced diarrhoea and small intestine transit method on mice. In former method, MEA 200 (mg/Kg) were reducing the total weight of the faeces of group (0.163±0.028) in com...

Biotic resistance is the ability of species in a community to limit the invasion of other species. However, biotic resistance is not widely used to control invasive plants. Experimental, functional, and modeling approaches were combined to investigate the processes of invasion by Ageratina altissima (white snakeroot), a model invasive species in South Korea. We hypothesized that (1) functional ...

To date little information has been collected on the pollination biology of Ailanthus altissima (Mill.) Swingle (tree-of-heaven), an invasive exotic in the U.S. This study was conducted to determine the insect pollinator fauna visiting A. altissima and to study general pollinator visitation patterns associated with the tree’s nectar profile. A list of taxa visiting trees within each of three si...