Plant succession is one of many factors that may affect the composition and structure of herbivorous insect communities. However, few studies have examined the effect of forest age on the diversity and abundance of insect communities. If forest age influences insect diversity, then the schedule of timber harvest rotation may have consequent effects on biodiversity. The insect herbivore communit...

Reduced recruitment of blue oak (Quercus douglasii) seedlings in California grasslands and woodlands may result from shifts in seasonal soil water availability coincident with replacement of the native perennial herbaceous community by Mediterranean annuals. We used a combination of container and field experiments to examine the interrelationships between soil water potential, herbaceous neighb...

The first-instar nymph and adult female of Kermes greeni Bodenheimer, 1931 are redescribed and a lectotype is designated. Kermes palestiniensis Balachowsky, 1953 is synonymized with K. greeni. This synonymy is based on a study of the type material of K. greeni and K. palestiniensis, as well as on fresh, topotypic material collected from Quercus calliprinos Webb in Israel.

A new genus of cynipid oak gallwasp-Cyclocynips Melika, Tang, & Sinclair (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae: Cynipini), with two new species--C. uberis and C. tumorvirgae--reared from galls on oaks of the Quercus subgenus Cyclobalanopsis is described from Taiwan. Descriptions of asexual generation adults and their diagnostic characters are presented. The likelihood of yet undiscovered sexual generations a...

dry matter production in oak (Quercus robur L.) seedlings and clonal cherry (Prunus avium L. × pseudocerasus Lind.) plants were measured during 19 months of growth in climate-controlled greenhouses at ambient (350 vpm) or elevated (700 vpm) CO2. In both species, the elevated CO2 treatment increased the PPFD saturated-rate of photosynthesis and dry matter production. After two months at elevated...

Quercus is an economically important and phylogenetically complex genus in the family Fagaceae. Due to extensive hybridization and introgression, it is considered to be one of the most challenging plant taxa, both taxonomically and phylogenetically. Quercus aquifolioides is an evergreen sclerophyllous oak species that is endemic to, but widely distributed across, the Hengduanshan Biodiversity H...

In forests, the vulnerable seedling stage is largely influenced by the canopy, which modifies the surrounding environment. Consequently, any alteration in the characteristics of the canopy, such as those promoted by forest dieback, might impact regeneration dynamics. Our work analyzes the interaction between canopy neighbors and seedlings in Mediterranean forests affected by the decline of thei...