Chestnut-leaved oak (Quercus castaneifolia C. A. Mey) is one of the most important native oaks of Iran distributed in the Hyrcanian Forests. The pure and mixed stands of it cover about 6.5% of these forests. The species represents morphological variations which have resulted in the description of several infraspecific taxa by different authors. Eight taxa were recognized as subspecies and varie...

A multi-stemmed growth form may be an important trait enabling the persistence of individual shrubs in the forest understory. With the aim of evaluating the role of multiple stems, neighbor competition and soil nutrients in shrub performance, we study the dynamics of two temperate multi-stemmed shrub species. We modeled stem growth and survival of Corylus mandshurica and Acer barbinerve in two ...

This study investigated the extent to which aquatic plant and macroinvertebrate assemblages in small outdoor microcosms (cylinders 1.25-m diameter x 1.25 m deep) resembled assemblages found in natural ponds in Britain. Comparisons were made in terms of community structure, species richness, and numbers of uncommon species. Multivariate analysis indicated that, although the microcosms had no exa...

Spring leaf phenology is an important event for trees to determine carbon fixation during the growing season. However, less understood about intraspecific variation in spring and its relationship with temperature requirements of conifers, which problematic accurately predicting influence climate warming on conifers. I monitored bud burst timing degree days required seedlings large individuals A...

Forests are the leading ecosystems that under threat due to pressure of global change. Being for a forest ecosystem means fragmented and isolated habitats, decrease in biodiversity change landscape. In recent years, restoring landscape connectivity by minimising fragmentation has been recognised as key strategy conserve biodiversity. Well-connected habitat networks thought both protect existing...

The relationship between satellite-derived low cloud frequency and the occurrence of tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF) in Taiwan was investigated. From daily MODIS cloud mask products between 2003 and 2012 the low cloud class was extracted and mean low cloud frequency was calculated for Taiwan. This low cloud frequency map was blended with an existing plot-based vegetation classification for...