We studied three cerrado physiognomies (campo cerrado, a savanna woodland; cerrado sensu stricto, a woodland; and cerradão, a tall woodland) in a reserve with 1,225 ha, in Santa Rita do Passa-Quatro (21 degrees 36-38'S and 47 degrees 36-39'W), São Paulo State, South-eastern Brazil, to compare plant communities structure. As descriptors of the vegetation structure, we used richness, density, bas...

Fungi play a key role in soil-plant interactions, nutrient cycling and carbon flow and are essential for the functioning of arctic terrestrial ecosystems. Some studies have shown that the composition of fungal communities is highly sensitive to variations in environmental conditions, but little is known about how the conditions control the role of fungal communities (i.e., their ecosystem funct...

Introduction It is often stated that biological invasions pose the second most pressing threat to biodiversity after direct habitat transformation. Yet this assertion, which has crucial policy implications for conservation, land-use planning and restoration, has yet to be quantitatively tested, except on the basis of analysis of threatening factors listed for rare species. A more detailed asses...

The flora of Xishuangbanna in southern Yunnan, southwestern China, consists of 3340 native seed plant species belonging to 1176 genera and 182 families. Tropical floristic elements at the generic level form a major contribution (78.3%) to the total flora of southern Yunnan, of which the dominant geographic elements are those of tropical Asian distribution. The tropical Asian flora of Xishuangba...

Seasonally dry tropical forest is one of the highly threatened biome. However, studies on the effect of fire on these tree communities are still scarce. In this context, a floristic and structural survey in three forest areas in the southeast of Brazil that were affected by fire between 14 and 25 years ago was performed with the objective of evaluating post-fire regeneration. In each site, five...

Evaluation of wetland ecological condition requires quantitative biological indices for measuring anthropogenic impairment. We implemented a modified floristic quality assessment index (FQAI) protocol for 75 isolated, depressional herbaceous wetland systems, exploring refinements of FQAI standard methods. Species encountered during sampling (n 5 397) were assigned coefficients of conservatism (...

The Baturité Mountain Range, located in the State of Ceará (BRA), displays on its highest levels a vegetation viewed as a disjunction from the Atlantic Forest in the East of Brazil. Among the various attributes associated with this vegetation, the abundance of water resources and a high biodiversity have a more outstanding relevance. However, in view of the current accelerated deforestation pro...

We developed an algorithm to improve richness assessment based on paleoecological series, considering sample features such as their temporal resolutions or their volumes. Our new method can be applied to both high- and low-count size proxies, i.e. pollen and plant macroremain records, respectively. While pollen generally abounds in sediments, plant macroremains are generally rare, thus leading ...

In order to study floristic and molecular classification of common wild wheat (Triticum boeoticum Boiss.), an analysis was conducted on populations of the Triticum boeoticum collected from different regions of Iran. Considering all floristic compositions of habitats, six floristic groups (syntaxa) within the populations were identified. A high level of variation of T. boeoticum also detected us...