Resources such as water taken up by plants can be released into soils through hydraulic redistribution and can also be translocated by clonal integration within a plant clonal network. We hypothesized that the resources from one (donor) microsite could be translocated within a clonal network, released into different (recipient) microsites and subsequently used by neighbor plants in the recipien...

For the first time to our knowledge, we report here methane emissions by plant communities in alpine ecosystems in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. This has been achieved through long-term field observations from June 2003 to July 2006 using a closed chamber technique. Strong methane emission at the rate of 26.2+/-1.2 and 7.8+/-1.1microg CH4 m-2h-1 was observed for a grass community in a Kobresia hum...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS High alpine environments are characterized by short growing seasons, stochastic climatic conditions and fluctuating pollinator visits. These conditions are rather unfavourable for sexual reproduction of flowering plants. Apomixis, asexual reproduction via seed, provides reproductive assurance without the need of pollinators and potentially accelerates seed development. There...

Ethanolic and aqueous extracts from five plant species used in Turkish traditional medicine were evaluated for in vivo hypercholesterolaemic and antioxidant activities: Agrostemma githago L., Potentilla reptans L., Thymbra spicata var. spicata L., Urtica dioica L. and Viscum album var. album L. We assayed the effects of the administration of plant extracts on serum total cholesterol, triglyceri...

Species in the ivesioid clade of Potentilla (Rosaceae) are endemic to western North America, an area that underwent widespread aridification during the global temperature decrease following the Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum. Several morphological features interpreted as adaptations to drought are found in the clade, and many species occupy extremely dry habitats. Recent phylogenetic analyses hav...

Se documenta la presencia en los Pirineos de Potentilla pedata, sobre base criterios morfológicos ampliamente aceptados últimos años zona mediterránea. Esta especie presenta caracteres parte intermedios entre P. recta y hirta.