The spatial scale on which microbial communities respond to plant invasions may provide important clues as to the nature of potential invader-microbe interactions. Lespedeza cuneata (Dum. Cours.) G. Don is an invasive legume that may benefit from associations with mycorrhizal fungi; however, it has also been suggested that the plant is allelopathic and may alter the soil chemistry of invaded si...

Phylogenetic analyses using genome-scale data sets must confront incongruence among gene trees, which in plants is exacerbated by frequent gene duplications and losses. Gene tree parsimony (GTP) is a phylogenetic optimization criterion in which a species tree that minimizes the number of gene duplications induced among a set of gene trees is selected. The run time performance of previous implem...

The primary objective of this study was to clarify the influence of crop plants on atmospheric methane (CH4) in an agriculture-dominated landscape in the Upper Midwest of the United States. Measurements were carried out at two contrasting scales. At the plant scale, CH4 fluxes from soybean and corn plants were measured with a laser-based plant chamber system. At the landscape scale, the land su...

Earthworms and plants greatly affect belowground properties; however, their combined effects are more attractive based on the ecosystem scale in the field condition. To address this point, we manipulated earthworms (exotic endogeic species Pontoscolex corethrurus) and plants (living plants [native tree species Evodia lepta] and artificial plants) to investigate their combined effects on soil mi...

recently, many countries have paid substantial attention to power generation from biomass gasification, particularly through small-scale plants. a number of power plant models have been suggested and analyzed; however, certainly, desirable configurations have not been identified yet. moreover, their performances are ordinarily difficult to compare, especially owing to the fact that working hypo...

Approximately 2.4 million tons of bagasse are produced each year in Iran, most of which are currently treated as waste adding to serious environmental concerns. Application of bagasse for energy production is a sustainable solution to supply the required energy within the sugar refineries and export the surplus electricity to the grid. Currently, the energy demand in Iranian sugar mills is main...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS In clonal plants, internode connections allow translocation of photosynthates, water, nutrients and other substances among ramets. Clonal plants form large systems that are likely to experience small-scale spatial heterogeneity. Physiological and morphological responses of Fragaria vesca to small-scale heterogeneity in soil quality were investigated, together with how such h...

Many sites of high solar insolation in Australia are located far from major load centres, and it is likely that the siting of future solar power plants in Australia will necessitate extensive transmission infrastructure. The unique generation profile of solar electric plants limits the utilisation of dedicated transmission lines rated to the peak output of a plant. If a plant is oversized for a...

Nine parabolic trough power plants located in the California Mojave Desert represent the only commercial development of large-scale solar power plants to date. Although all nine plants continue to operate today, no new solar power plants have been completed since 1990. Over the last several years, the parabolic trough industry has focused much of its efforts on international market opportunitie...