Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain the diversity of gall-midge insects (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae), some of them taking into account plant diversity. This study aims to test the importance of size, age and composition of host plant taxa in the diversity of Cecidomyiidae. For this we used inventories data on the diversity of galling and host plants in Brazil. We found that Asterales, Myr...

Decomposition is a critical source of plant nutrients, and drives the largest flux of terrestrial C to the atmosphere. Decomposing soil organic matter typically contains litter from multiple plant species, yet we lack a mechanistic understanding of how species diversity influences decomposition processes. Here, we show that soil C and N cycling during decomposition are controlled by the composi...

in order to study genetic diversity in 178 accessions of lentil (lens culinaris medik) originated from warm climate regions of iran, this experiment was conducted in 2009 at research farm of the national plant gene bank of iran in karaj. experimental design was an augmented experiment with six blocks and each block containes 30 accessions. accessions were compared with promising lines including...

Biodiversity loss is proceeding at an unprecedented rate, yet we lack a thorough understanding of the consequences of losing diversity at different scales. While species diversity is known to impact community and ecosystem processes, genotypic diversity is assumed to have relatively smaller effects. Nonetheless, a few recent studies suggest that genotypic diversity may have quantitatively simil...

Ecosystems worldwide are increasingly impacted by multiple drivers of environmental change, including climate warming and loss of biodiversity. We show, using a long-term factorial experiment, that plant diversity loss alters the effects of warming on productivity. Aboveground primary productivity was increased by both high plant diversity and warming, and, in concert, warming (≈1.5 °C average ...

Resource abundance and plant diversity are two predominant factors hypothesized to influence the amount of damage plants receive from natural enemies. Many impacts of these environmental variables on plant damage are likely indirect and result because both resource availability and diversity can influence plant traits associated with attractiveness to herbivores or susceptibility to pathogens. ...

Humans are modifying both the identities and numbers of species in ecosystems, but the impacts of such changes on ecosystem processes are controversial. Plant species diversity, functional diversity, and functional composition were experimentally varied in grassland plots. Each factor by itself had significant effects on many ecosystem processes, but functional composition and functional divers...

Plant species diversity is threatened in many agricultural landscapes due to the changes it has to undergo. Although the modifi cation of the agricultural landscape pattern is observed across Europe, both extensive and intensive agricultural landscapes still co-exist in Poland. The objective of the study was to examine the fl ora in fi eld margins in intensively and extensively managed agricult...

BACKGROUND Evolutionary history has provided insights into the assembly and functioning of plant communities, yet patterns of phylogenetic community structure have largely been based on non-dynamic observations of natural communities. We examined phylogenetic patterns of natural colonization, extinction and biomass production in experimentally assembled communities. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FIND...

Joseph E. Fargione* and David Tilman Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St Paul, MN 55108, USA *Correspondence and present address: Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA E-mail: [email protected] Abstract Complementarity and sampling effects may both contribute to increased invasion resistance at higher diversity. We meas...