The reproductive assurance hypothesis states that self-incompatible female plants must produce twice the number of seeds relative to their self-compatible hermaphroditic counterparts to persist in gynodioecious populations. This is a viable life-history strategy, provided that pollination rates are sufficiently high. However, reduced pollination rates in alpine plants are likely due to climate ...

Golodets, C. (corresponding author, [email protected]) & Kigel, J. ([email protected]): Institute for Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 76100, Rehovot, Israel Sapir, Y. ([email protected]): The Botanical Garden, Department of Molecular Biology and Ecology of Plants, Faculty of ...

While most temperate plants probably underwent glacial constriction to refugia and interglacial expansion, another type of interglacial refugia might have existed to maintain alpine plants during warm periods. To test this hypothesis, we applied phylogeographic methods to 763 individuals (62 populations) which belong to 7 taxonomically difficult species of the Rosa sericea complex distributed i...

In a field experiment with 30 locally occurring old-field plant species grown in a common garden, we found that non-native plants suffer levels of attack (leaf herbivory) equal to or greater than levels suffered by congeneric native plants. This phylogenetically controlled analysis is in striking contrast with recent findings from surveys of exotic organisms, and suggests that even if ‘enemy re...

The reproductive assurance hypothesis states that self-incompatible female plants must produce twice the number of seeds relative to their self-compatible hermaphroditic counterparts to persist in gynodioecious populations. This is a viable life-history strategy, provided that pollination rates are sufficiently high. However, reduced pollination rates in alpine plants are likely due to climate ...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Although urban gardens provide opportunities for pollinators in an otherwise inhospitable environment, most garden plants are not native to the recipient biogeographical region and their value to local pollinators is disputed. This study tested the hypothesis that bumblebees foraging in English urban gardens preferentially visited sympatric Palaearctic-range plants over spec...

Botanical gardens have been assembling collections of data on local computer networks for some time, but access to these databases via the internet is a more recent innovation. For a look at some of the latest trends in online botanical-garden resources, check out the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE). The RBGE’s searchable data sets lead visitors to the Araliales Resource Centre, which pro...

Gardens represent important sources of goods and services for their owners. This functionality translates directly into the types of plants cultivated in a given garden, and terminology has been developed to distinguish each category of garden according to its purpose. The factors explaining the differentiation and distribution of gardens have not previously been explored at the global scale. I...