The current distribution of the introduced seagrass Zostera japonica is restricted to the midto upper intertidal zone in the coastal Pacific Northwest region of North America. The climate in this region is cool andwet, becoming hotter and dryerwith increasing distance southward. Since temperature is likely to be an important factor affecting distribution of this species, growth of two populatio...

The development of crops which are well suited to growth under future environmental conditions such as higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations ([CO2]) is essential to meeting the challenge of ensuring food security in the face of the growing human population and changing climate. A high-yielding indica rice variety (Oryza sativa L. cv. Takanari) has been recently identified as a potential candida...

Eucalyptus plantations occupy almost 20 million ha worldwide and exceed 3.7 million ha in Brazil alone. Improved genetics and silviculture have led to as much as a three-fold increase in productivity in Eucalyptus plantations in Brazil and the large land area occupied by these highly productive ecosystems raises concern over their effect on local water supplies. As part of the Brazil Potential ...

Photosynthetic rate is an indicator of vegetation performance as a carbon sequestration element on earth. At the same time, primary productivity is also function of photosynthetic rate and canopy cover. The photosynthetic capacity of an ecosystem is limited by the foliage pigment content due to the active participation of pigmentation in photon capture. Hence, the quantitative assessment of fol...

Research about biodiversity-productivity relationships has focused on herbaceous ecosystems, with results from tree field studies only recently beginning to emerge. Also, the latter are concentrated largely in the temperate zone. Tree species diversity generally is much higher in subtropical and tropical than in temperate or boreal forests, with reasons not fully understood. Niche overlap and t...

Drought is one of the main factors affecting rice productivity. Aromatic Rice varieties differ in their ability to withstand drought while keeping characteristic fragrance. Considering that 70% of the water used by humankind is directed to irrigate crops, tolerance to water scarcity is also a key issue for agricultural sustainability. The understanding on the mechanisms underlying drought toler...

In metabolic scaling theory the size-dependence of plant processes is described by a power function of form Y=Y o M (θ) where Y is a characteristic such as plant productivity that changes with plant size (M) raised to the θ (th) power and Y o is a normalization constant that adjusts the general relationship across environments and species. In essence, the theory considers that the value of θ ar...

Leaf area index (LAI) is an important structural characteristic of forest ecosystems which has been shown to be strongly related to forest mass and energy cycles and forest productivity. LAI is more easily measured than forest productivity, and so a strong relationship between LAI and productivity would be a valuable tool in forest management. While a linear relationship has been observed betwe...

The role of a proposed micro-fog system in regulating greenhouse environments and enhancing tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) productivity during summer season was studied. Experiments were carried out in a multi-span glass greenhouse, which was divided into two identical compartments involving different environments: (1) without environment control and (2) with a micro-fog system operating when...