Establishing seedlings in subtropical plantations is very important for forest health, succession and management. Information on seedling nutrient concentrations is essential for both the selection of suitable indigenous tree species to accelerate succession of the established plantation and sustainable forest management. In this study, we investigated the concentrations of nitrogen ([N]), phos...

1 2 The common development of vegetation and soil is a central question of plant succession. We 3 asked whether places where aerial parts of woody vegetation die and accumulate on the 4 ground (zones of destruction or 'micro-chablis') played a role in the successional 5 development of vegetation patches on tropical inselbergs and whether causes could be 6 inferred from the analysis of the organ...

—The expansion of western juniper ( Juniperus occidentalis spp. occidentalis Hook.) in the northern Great Basin has resulted in the wide-scale conversion of sagebrush-steppe communities to juniper woodlands. Prescribed fire and mechanical cutting are the 2 main methods used to remove juniper and restore sagebrush steppe. Mechanical treatments commonly leave cut juniper on site. Disadvantages of...

Approximately 50,000 ha of native wet Metrosideros forest on the island of Hawai'i experienced a drastic reduction (dieback) of the tree canopy between 1954 and 1977. Two general hypotheses have previously been suggested to explain this phenomenon: 1) Metrosideros dieback has resulted from recently introduced pathogens, and 2) the dieback has naturally occurred previously in Hawai'i, and is rel...

The biogenic volatile organic compounds (VOC) emitted by the vegetation of a terrestrial ecosystem play a key role in both regional air quality and tropospheric chemistry. To describe the general emission properties of VOC of different plant functional groups (PFG) in a typical temperate grassland in Inner Mongolia, China, we randomly selected 175 plant species and measured the quantities of is...

Hihi (or stitchbird, Notiomystis cincta) is a rare honeyeater endemic to the North Island of New Zealand. Hihi were translocated from Little Barrier Island to Mokoia Island, Lake Rotorua, in 1994. Mokoia is a small (135 ha) island with secondary vegetation, so there was some doubt as to whether the island had sufficient diversity of fruit and nectar sources to support a hihi population. This pa...

Pioneer tree species have acquisitive leaf characteristics associated with high demand of light and water, and are expected to be shade and drought intolerant. Using leaf functional traits (specific leaf area, photosynthetic rate, relative water content and stomatal conductance) and tree performance (mortality rate) in the field, we assessed how shade and drought tolerance of leaves are related...

The plant community in the Patagonian steppe is arranged in two structural patch types: scattered grasses and shrubs, which are often surrounded by a ring of grasses. Previous studies suggested that this pattern results from a cyclical succession driven by plant interactions. Although there is a good understanding of the factors affecting the formation of the grass rings encircling the shrubs, ...

Classical ecological theory predicts that changes in the availability of essential resources such as nitrogen should lead to changes in plant community composition due to differences in species-specific nutrient requirements. What remains unknown, however, is the extent to which climate change will alter the relationship between plant communities and the nitrogen cycle. During intervals of clim...