We present a novel optimal allocation model for perennial plants, in which assimilates are not allocated directly to vegetative or reproductive parts but instead go first to a storage compartment from where they are then optimally redistributed. We do not restrict considerations purely to periods favourable for photosynthesis, as it was done in published models of perennial species, but analyse...

In the course of their evolution, the angiosperms have radiated into most known plant forms and life histories. Their adaptation to a recently created habitat, the crop field, produced a novel form: the plant that allocates an unprecedented 30-60% of its net productivity to sexual structures. Long-lived trees, shrubs and vines of this form evolved, as did annual herbs. Perennial herb forms with...

Changes in the vegetation of Flat Top Hill, a highly modified conservation area in semi-arid Central Otago, New Zealand, are described four years after the cessation of sheep and rabbit grazing. Unusually moist weather conditions coincide with the four-year period of change in response to the cessation of grazing. Between 1993 and 1997, the average richness and diversity (H’) of species increas...

Many ecosystems experience strong temporal variability in environmental conditions; yet, a clear picture of how niche and neutral processes operate to determine community assembly in temporally variable systems remains elusive. In this study, we constructed neutral metacommunity models to assess the relative importance of neutral processes in a spatially and temporally variable ecosystem. We an...

Low temperature is one of the abiotic stresses seriously affecting the growth of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.), and freezing tolerance is a complex trait of major agronomical importance in northern and central Europe. Understanding the genetic control of freezing tolerance would aid in the development of cultivars of perennial ryegrass with improved adaptation to frost. The plant mater...

Hybrids between maize (Zea mays L.) and perennial teosinte (EuMaena perennis Hitchc.) offer a favorable opportunity to follow the behavior of triplicate sets of chromosomes in a triploid hybrid. Maize, the diploid parent, has been carefully analyzed both genetically and cytologically. Perennial teosinte seems to be unquestionably a true tetraploid. Its tetraploid character is evident from (1) t...

The calculations for the baseline model (monoculture evolution in the presence of moderate environmental variation) were presented in Snyder (2006). Here I show how to calculate the coevolved dispersal distances. To find the coevolved dispersal distances, we find the evolutionarily stable (ESS) annual dispersal distance as a function of the perennial dispersal distance, then find the ESS perenn...