The application of high-throughput plant phenotyping (HTPP) to continuously study plant populations under relevant growing conditions creates the possibility to more efficiently dissect the genetic basis of dynamic adaptive traits. Toward this end, we employed a field-based HTPP system that deployed sets of sensors to simultaneously measure canopy temperature, reflectance, and height on a cotto...

Estimates suggest that perhaps 40% of all invertebrate species are found in tropical rainforest canopies. Extrapolations of total diversity and food web analyses have been based almost exclusively on species inhabiting the foliage, under the assumption that foliage samples are representative of the entire canopy. We examined the validity of this assumption by comparing the density of invertebra...

Predicting the effects of global climate change on species interactions has remained difficult because there is a spatiotemporal mismatch between regional climate models and microclimates experienced by organisms. We evaluated resource selection in a predominant ectothermic predator using a modeling approach that permitted us to assess the importance of habitat structure and local real-time air...

This research aims to evaluate the effects of seed scarification on five perennialAstragalus species including A. effusus, A. vegetus, A. subsecundus, A. brevidens and A.cyclophyllon in the field conditions. Seeds were sown after scarification with sandpaper byhand in the field of Homand Absard Rangeland Research Station, Damavand, Iran in autumnin 2008. The seeds were sown using split plot des...

Discrepancies in scale dynamics often make cohesive structural conclusions difficult, especially when dealing with ecological variance. We studied presence and abundance of grasshopper species in similar, yet distinct, montane habitat of southeast Wyoming and northern Colorado, USA. By limiting ecological variance, grasshopper species structure at two behavioral scales (grouped species dynamics...

The plants growth and development depend directly on several physical variables, such as light, temperature or humidity. Thus, solar radiation acts both as a source of energy for photosynthesis and the energy budget, and as a source of information in photomorphogenesis. Moreover, physical processes may indirectly influence the canopy development. For example the plant pathogen cycles depend on ...

Question: Does the proximity of shrubs affect seasonal water stress of young Austrocedrus chilensis trees (a native conifer of the Austral Temperate Forest of South America) in xeric sites? Location: A. chilensis xeric forest in northwest Patagonia, Argentina. Methods: We examined the dependence of predawn twig water potential on tree development (seedling to adult) and proximity to nurse shrub...

Theoretical models predict that the relative importance of competition and facilitation vary inversely along gradients of abiotic stress, with facilitation dominating under harsh conditions (the so called ‘‘stress-gradient hypothesis’’). To date, very few studies have tested this hypothesis in the framework of succession. Moreover, the generality of the hypothesis is currently under debate and ...

Fire is frequently used as a land management tool for cattle ranching and annual crops in the Amazon. However, these maintenance fires often escape into surrounding forests, with potentially severe impacts for forest biodiversity. We examined the effect of experimental fires on leaf-litter arthropod abundance in a seasonally-dry forest in the Brazilian Amazon. The study plots (50 ha each) inclu...