Temperate and boreal forests are forecast to change in composition and shift spatially in response to climate change. Local-scale expansions and contractions are most likely observable near species range limits, and as trees are long-lived, initial shifts are likely to be detected in the understory regeneration layers. We examined understory relative abundance patterns of naturally regenerated ...

Many groups of organisms show greater species richness in the tropics than in the temperate zone, particularly in tropical montane regions. Forty years ago, Janzen suggested that more limited temperature seasonality in the tropics leads to greater climatic zonation and more climatic barriers to organismal dispersal along elevational gradients in the tropics relative to temperate regions. These ...

Current models and observations indicate that bacterial respiration should increase and growth efficiency (BGE) should decrease with increasing temperatures. However, these models and observations are mostly derived from data collected in temperate regions, and the tropics are under-represented. The aim of this work was to compare bacterial metabolism, namely bacterial production (BP) and respi...

The biome concept is used to classify vegetation into distinct groups. This concept integrates the relationship of plants and animals with their distributions. North America is comprised of 11 biomes (arctic tundra, desert, broad sclerophyll, pinyon-juniper, temperate grasslands, northern coniferous forest, moist temperate coniferous forest, temperate deciduous forest, mountain complex, subtrop...

Keywords: continental climate of the temperate belt, east-coast climate of the temperate belt, subtropical continental climate, subtropical east-coast climate, subtropical west-coast climate, west-coast climate of the temperate belt. Contents 1. Introduction 2. Subtropical belt 2.1. Subtropical continental climate 2.2. Subtropical oceanic climate 2.3. Subtropical west-coast climate 2.4. Subtrop...

Question: How do the diversity, size structure, and spatial pattern of woody species in a temperate (Mediterranean climate) forest compare to temperate and tropical forests? Location: Mixed evergreen coastal forest in the Santa Cruz Mountains, California, USA. Methods: We mapped, tagged, identified, and measured all woody stems ( 1 cm diameter) in a 6-ha forest plot, following Center for Tropic...

Tropical diversity has generally exceeded temperate diversity in the present and at points in the past, but whether measured differences have remained relatively constant through time has been unknown. Here we examine tropical vs. temperate diversities from the Neogene to Recent using the within-habitat diversity measure Fisher's alpha of Cenozoic benthic foraminifera from the temperate Central...

Jurassic deposits are discovered in the Shahreza area, southwest of Isfahan city, central Iran. They yield plant macrofossils belonging to 22 species assigned to 17 genera of various orders such as Equisetales, Filicales, Bennettitales, Cycadales, Ginkgoales and Coniferales. According to the occurrence of Annulariopsis simpsonii, Coniopteris hymenophylloides, Cladophlebis aktashensis, Nilssonia...