BACKGROUND Miombo woodlands play an important role in the livelihood of people living in sub-equatorial African countries, contributing to satisfy basic human needs such as food, medicine, fuelwood and building materials. However, over-exploitation of plant resources and unsustainable harvest practices can potentially degrade forests. The aim of this study was to document the use of Miombo plan...

The diversification of lineages within Pseudomonas syringae has involved a number of adaptive shifts from herbaceous hosts onto various species of tree, resulting in the emergence of highly destructive diseases such as bacterial canker of kiwi and bleeding canker of horse chestnut. This diversification has involved a high level of gene gain and loss, and these processes are likely to play major...

The abundance of Nassella leucotricha and its rate of infection by its fungal pathogen, Atkinsonella texensis (Balansieae, Clavicipitaceae, Ascomycota), varied spatially in three savanna sites in central Texas. In two of the three sites, Nassella was much more abundant at the edge of clusters of woody plants than in the open grassy areas between them. In all three sites, the incidence of diseas...

Pest index, a new approach to categorizing the threat posed by an organism to woody plants, is proposed to assist plant managers in establishing treatment thresholds for pests of woody plants. The need for such a tool is based on the incredible diversity of pests of woody plants and the lack of experimental data establishing such thresholds. The pest index is computed using information about th...

The contribution of savannas to global carbon storage is poorly understood, in part due to lack of knowledge of the amount of belowground biomass. In these ecosystems, the coexistence of woody and herbaceous life forms is often explained on the basis of belowground interactions among roots. However, the distribution of root biomass in savannas has seldom been investigated, and the dependence of...

Woody plant encroachment into grasslands has been globally widespread. The woody species invading grasslands represent a variety of contrasting plant functional groups and growth forms. Are some woody plant functional types (PFTs) better suited to invade grasslands than others? To what extent do local patterns of distribution and abundance of woody PFTs invading grasslands reflect intrinsic top...

To estimate the relative contributions of woody and herbaceous vegetation to savanna productivity, we measured the 13C/12C isotopic ratios of leaves from trees, shrubs, grasses and the surface soil carbon pool for 22 savannas in Australia, Brazil and Ghana covering the full savanna spectrum ranging from almost pure grassland to closed woodlands on all three continents. All trees and shrubs samp...

In recent years, extensive research has been done on phytoremediation technology, but the study on repair mechanisms and the migration path of heavy metal contaminants in woody plants is particularly rare. The object of this study was Pan Yi mine reclamation area in Huainan as an example of cadmium (Cd) content within different parts of woody plants tissue. Based on the research findings about ...