Woody plants in boreal to arctic environments and high mountains survive prolonged exposure to temperatures below -40°C and minimum temperatures below -60°C, and laboratory tests show that many of these species can also survive immersion in liquid nitrogen at -196°C. Studies of biochemical changes that occur during acclimation, including recent proteomic and metabolomic studies, have identified...

McPherson, Guy R.; Weltzin, Jake F. Disturbance and climate change in United States/Mexico borderland plant communities: a state-of-the-knowledge review. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-50. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 24 p. This review evaluates the effects and importance of disturbance and climate change on plant community dynamic...

Ecosystem responses to key climate drivers are reflected in phenological dynamics such as the timing and degree of "green-up" that integrate responses over spatial scales from individual plants to ecosystems. This integration is clearest in ecosystems dominated by a single species or life form, such as seasonally dynamic grasslands or more temporally constant evergreen forests. Yet many ecosyst...

Hagerman, S.M., S.M. Sakakibara, D.M. Durall. 2000. Potential for woody understorey plants to provide refuge for ectomycorrhizal inoculum at an Interior Douglas-fir forest after clearcut logging. In Proceedings, From science to management and back: a science forum for southern interior ecosystems of British Columbia. C. Hollstedt, K. Sutherland, and T. Innes (editors). Southern Interior Forest ...

INTRODUCTION: The United States Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) Ecosystem Management and Restoration Research Program (EMRRP) is supporting a nationwide effort to address the impact of invasive woody plant species on ecosystem restoration, and more specifically, to determine mechanisms to address the most regionally prevalent invasive species impacting restoration activities. The research effort...

We studied three cerrado physiognomies (campo cerrado, a savanna woodland; cerrado sensu stricto, a woodland; and cerradão, a tall woodland) in a reserve with 1,225 ha, in Santa Rita do Passa-Quatro (21 degrees 36-38'S and 47 degrees 36-39'W), São Paulo State, South-eastern Brazil, to compare plant communities structure. As descriptors of the vegetation structure, we used richness, density, bas...

Woody plants are particularly difficult to investigate due to high phenolic, resin, and tannin contents and laborious sample preparation. In particular, protein isolation from woody plants for two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) is challenging as secondary metabolites negatively interfere with protein extraction and separation. In this study, three protein extraction protocols, using TCA...

The idea that herbaceous plants have higher relative growth rates (RGRs) compared with woody plants is fundamental to many of the most influential theories in plant ecology. This difference in growth rate is thought to reflect systematic variation in physiology, allocation and leaf construction. Previous studies documenting this effect have, however, ignored differences in seed mass. As woody s...

Woody encroachment is a widespread and acute phenomenon affecting grasslands and savannas worldwide. We performed a meta-analysis of 29 studies from 13 different grassland/savanna communities in North America to determine the consequences of woody encroachment on plant species richness. In all 13 communities, species richness declined with woody plant encroachment (average decline = 45%). Speci...