Seasonal woody plant shoot growth in Burkea afrieana — Ochna pulchra savanna

Biogeochemical Changes Accompanying Woody Plant Encroachment in a Subtropical Savanna

Ecosystem properties of surficial (0–10 cm) soils in remnant herbaceous patches were compared to those of contrasting woody plant patch types (upland discrete cluster, upland grove, and lowland woodland) where shifting land cover is known to have occurred over the past 50–77 yr. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and quantify the biogeochemical consequences and subsequent developmental r...

Do Leaves Control Episodic Shoot Growth in Woody Plants?

Interpreting Woody Plant Richness from Seasonal Ratios of Photosynthesis

In forested portions of Oregon, species richness of woody plants on plots 400–500 m2 ranged from 1 to .20. We investigated what might account for this variation using a satellite-driven process model that predicts gross photosynthesis and establishes, on a monthly time step, the most constraining environmental variable. Independent satellite and ground-based data confirmed that the highest spec...

Gibberellin Promotes Shoot Branching in the Perennial Woody Plant Jatropha curcas

Strigolactone (SL), auxin and cytokinin (CK) interact to regulate shoot branching. CK has long been considered to be the only key phytohormone to promote lateral bud outgrowth. Here we report that gibberellin also acts as a positive regulator in the control of shoot branching in the woody plant Jatropha curcas. We show that gibberellin and CK synergistically promote lateral bud outgrowth, and t...

Comparative growth analysis of tropical forest and savanna woody plants using phylogenetically independent contrasts

1 The savanna–forest boundary in the tropics is marked by a discontinuity not only in tree density, but also in species composition, with few tree species regularly occurring in both savanna and forest environments. 2 We performed comparative growth analysis for nine congeneric pairs, each containing one savanna species and one forest species, grown in a factorial design involving two light and...