During recent decades large changes in vegetation biomass have been observed in arctic and alpine areas. While these temporal trends have been clearly linked to changing climatic conditions, the drivers of local spatial variation in biomass are still relatively poorly understood. Thus, we examine the effects of abiotic conditions (as measured by ten variables representing topography, soil prope...

Many mechanisms of invasive species success have been elucidated, but those driving cryptic invasions of non-native genotypes remain least understood. In one of the most successful cryptic plant invasions in North America, we investigate the mechanisms underlying the displacement of native Phragmites australis by its Eurasian counterpart. Since invasive Phragmites ’ populations have been especi...

In a field experiment conducted in a Mediterranean area of inner Sicily, durum wheat was inoculated with plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), or with both to evaluate their effects on nutrient uptake, plant growth, and the expression of key transporter genes involved in nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) uptake. These biotic associations were studie...

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a r t i c l e i n f o In this study retrievals of forest canopy height were obtained through adjustment of a simple geometric-optical (GO) model against red band surface bidirectional reflectance estimates from NASA's Multiangle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR), mapped to a 250 m grid. The soil-understory background contribution was partly isolated prior to inversion using regression relationsh...

Algorithms relating remotely sensed woody cover to biomass are often the basis for large-scale inventories of aboveground carbon stocks. However, these algorithms are commonly applied in a generic fashion without consideration of disturbances that might alter vegetation structure. We compared field and remote sensing estimates of woody biomass on savannas with contrasting disturbance (fire) his...

A process-based model for semi-arid grassland ecosystems was developed. It is driven by standard daily meteorological data and simulates with a daily time step the seasonal course of root, aboveground green, and dead biomass. Water infiltration and redistribution in the soil, transpiration and evaporation are simulated in a coupled water budget submodel. The main plant processes are photosynthe...

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Good Practice Guidance (IPCC GPG) (IPCC 2003), remote sensing methods are especially suitable for independent verifying the national Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) carbon pool estimates, especially the aboveground biomass. In the present study, we demonstrate the potential to integrate standwise inventory data, ASTER a...

Species-specific allometric equations that provide estimates of biomass from measured plant attributes are currently unavailable for shrubs common to South Florida pine rocklands, where fire plays an important part in shaping the structure and function of ecosystems. We developed equations to estimate total aboveground biomass and fine fuel of 10 common hardwood species in the shrub layer of pi...