Results from a long-term planted mixture of cherrybark oak (Quercus pagoda Raf.) and sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua L.) showed sweetgum taller in height and larger in diameter than cherrybark oak early in plantation development. By age 17 years, cherrybark oak was similar in height and diameter with sweetgum and by age 21 years was taller in height and larger in diameter than sweetgum depend...

A plantation of native trees was established in Panama in 2001 to study the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Five years later, mixed-species plots had experienced enhanced tree growth compared with monocultures. Searching for underlying mechanisms, we developed a neighborhood model isolating size and identity effects. We found that the size of neighbors is, by far, t...

BACKGROUND Children of workers exposed to pesticides are at risk of secondary pesticide exposure. We evaluated the potential for lower acetylcholinesterase activity in children cohabiting with fresh-cut flower plantation workers, which would be expected from organophosphate and carbamate insecticide exposure. Parental home surveys were performed and acetylcholinesterase activity was measured in...

Emerging Infectious Diseases • www.cdc.gov/eid • Vol. 15, No. 8, August 2009 1331 which directly and indirectly affect the occurrence and distribution of malaria (10). Whether malaria will return as a major health threat likely depends on the size and fragmentation of the individual plantation areas. The required size of a plantation for the survival of the vector population is unclear, but lar...

Simplification of natural habitats leads to a modification of the community associated with a host plant. Pequi trees (Caryocar brasiliense) are common to find in central Brazil, especially in the middle of monocultures, such as soy, corn, pasturelands or Eucalyptus plantations. On this scenario we hypothesized that habitat modification differentially affects the diversity of ants and herbivore...

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...

Wood is almost as important to humanity as food, and the natural forests from which most of it is harvested from are of enormous environmental value. However, these slow-growing forests are unable to meet current demand, resulting in the loss and degradation of forest. Plantation forests have the potential to supply the bulk of humanity's wood needs on a long-term basis, and so reduce to accept...

A study was carried out to assess carbon emission and carbon loss caused from land use change (LUC) of converting a wasteland into a Jatropha curcas plantation. The study was conducted for 12 months at a newly established Jatropha curcas plantation in Port Dickson, Malaysia. Assessments of soil carbon dioxide (CO(2)) flux, changes of soil total carbon and plant biomass loss and growth were made...

We used the heat-pulse velocity technique to estimate transpirational water use of trees in an experimental 16-year-old Pinus radiata D. Don plantation in South Australia during a 4-month period from November 1993 to March 1994 (spring-summer). Fertilization and other silvicultural treatments during the first 8 years of the plantation produced trees ranging in diameter at a height of 1.3 m from...

Poplar plantations are widely used for timber production and ecological restoration in northern China, a region that experiences frequent droughts and water scarcity. An open-path eddy-covariance (EC) system was used to continuously measure the carbon, water, and energy fluxes in a poplar plantation during the growing season (i.e., April–October) over the period 2006–2008 in the Daxing District...