Many cushion plants ameliorate the harsh environment they inhabit in alpine ecosystems and act as nurse plants, with significantly more species growing within their canopy than outside. These facilitative interactions seem to increase with the abiotic stress, thus supporting the stress-gradient hypothesis. We tested this prediction by exploring the association pattern of vascular plants with th...

In alpine habitats, positive interactions among plants tend to increase with elevation as a result of altitudinal increase in environmental harshness. However, in mountains located in arid zones, lower elevations are also stressful because of scarce availability of water, suggesting that positive interactions may not necessarily increase with elevation. Here we analysed the spatial association ...

Pollen embryogenesis provides a useful means of generating haploid plants for plant breeding and basic research. Although it is well-established that the efficacy of the process can be enhanced by the provision of immature pistils as a nurse tissue, the origin and compound class of the signal molecule(s) involved is still elusive. Here, a micro-culture system was established to enable the cultu...

Understanding how plants respond to environmental gradients and influence ecosystem functions remains a core challenge in ecology. Across species ecosystems, have been shown coordinate leaf, stem, root traits along gradient with optimal resource acquisition or conservation strategies at its extremes, termed the plant economic spectrum (PES), turn driving functioning. PES theory has successfully...

Abstract Frequent, severe defoliation reduces grass production and can alter plant species composition in grasslands. Multipaddock rotational grazing has been proposed as a strategy that may reduce the frequency intensity of on palatable plants without altering stocking rates. Previous studies evaluated this hypothesis using small, homogeneous paddocks nonadaptive rotation schedules found small...

Gonabad located at Khorasan Razavi and coordinates 580 30’ N 34o 35’ E. The highest point of the zone belongs to Peak of Siah Mountain (height of 2,863 meters above sea level) and the lowest place has height of 810 meters above sea level, which is located in North West in salt desert. The mean temperature of the warmest and coldest of year is 29.3 and 3.9 respectively. Mor...

gonabad located at khorasan razavi and coordinates 580 30’ n 34o 35’ e. the highest point of the zone belongs to peak of siah mountain (height of 2,863 meters above sea level) and the lowest place has height of 810 meters above sea level, which is located in north west in salt desert. the mean temperature of the warmest and coldest of year is 29.3 and 3.9 respectively. moreover, mean of rainfal...

there are more than 750 counties in 13 provinces and autonomous regionsconstituting 30% of china lands which are facing serious problem of desertification. theseareas are mainly distributed in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas in the western part ofnortheast china, north central china and most of northwest china. biological methods are theultimate way for drift sand stabilization and a fu...

The proximity of adult neighbors often increases the performance of woody seedlings under harsh environmental conditions but this nurse plant effect becomes less intense when abiotic stress is alleviated, as predicted by the stress gradient hypothesis (SGH). Although some studies have tested how the net nurse effect is changed by stress, few studies have tested how the mechanism that drives the...