Project Goals: This project is a component of the Shewanella Federation and as such contributes to the overall goal of applying the tools of genomics, leveraging the availability of genome sequence for 18 additional strains of Shewanella, to better understand the ecophysiology and speciation of respiratory-versatile members of this important genus. To understand these systems the SF is using ge...

The oxygen isotopic composition of plant cellulose is commonly used for the interpretations of climate, ecophysiology and dendrochronology in both modern and palaeoenvironments. Further applications of this analytical tool depends on our in-depth knowledge of the isotopic fractionations associated with the biochemical pathways leading to cellulose. Here, we test two important assumptions regard...

Growth in the publication of scientific articles is occurring at an exponential rate, prompting a growing need to synthesise information in a timely manner to combat urgent environmental problems and guide future research. Here, we undertake a topic analysis of dryland literature over the last 75 years (8218 articles) to identify areas in arid ecology that are well studied and topics that are e...

Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) is a specialised mode of photosynthesis that improves atmospheric CO2 assimilation in water-limited terrestrial and epiphytic habitats and in CO2-limited aquatic environments. In contrast with C3 and C4 plants, CAM plants take up CO2 from the atmosphere partially or predominantly at night. CAM is taxonomically widespreadamongvascular plants and is present inma...

Leaf area index (LAI) is a key structural characteristic of forest ecosystems because of the role of green leaves in controlling many biological and physical processes in plant canopies. Accurate LA1 estimates are required in studies of ecophysiology, atmosphere-ecosystem interactions, and global change. The objective of this paper is to evaluate LA1 values obtained by several research teams us...