Moso bamboos (Phyllostachys edulis) are important forestry plants in southern China, with substantial roles to play in regional economic and ecological systems. Mixing broad-leaved forests and moso bamboos is a common management practice in China, and it is fundamental to elucidate the interactions between broad-leaved trees and moso bamboos for ensuring the sustainable provision of ecosystem s...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Herbaceous-shrubby communities in the Gran Sabana (Great Savanna) Plateau of Venezuela grow under non-zonal conditions. We speculated that this would produce specific patterns of reproductive phenology within these different soil-climate-vegetation associations. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that the reproductive phenology patterns of four herbaceous-shrubby communi...

Castanopsis hystrix is one of the most important and dominant species in evergreen broad-leaved forests in subtropical China. However, the population of this species undergone severe decline because of deforestation over the past 2 decades. For both conservation and forestry management, it is essential to develop molecular markers for C. hystrix. We identified 11 microsatellite loci in 2 wild p...

The first detailed description of adults of Achipteria setulosa Golosova, 1981 with illustrations are provided, based on materials from central Japan. This species is placed in the subgenus Achipteria (Izuachipteria) Balogh & Mahunka, 1979. In addition, the species grouping of the known species in the genus Achipteria is briefly discussed, and three species-groups are proposed based on the stru...

We investigated the effects of plant density on reproductive success for two insect-pollinated plant species—the native North American wildflower Penstemon digitalis (Foxglove-leaved Penstemon), and the showy introduced weed Hesperis matronalis (Dame's Rocket). We found no indication that local density (within 3.0 m) affected reproductive success (seeds per fruit, proportion fruit set, total se...

Abstract There is mounting evidence that top‐down control by natural enemies helps maintain plant diversity in ecosystems. Previous work has concentrated on either forest trees or grassland herbs. Our knowledge of how affect herb forests limited. We used fungicides and insecticide to experimentally examine the effects fungi insects abundance at community‐wide scale within groups species with ce...

Pine wilt disease (PWD) has caused significant Masson pine mortality in the Three Gorges reservoir region in central China. In this study, five uniform Masson pine stand types infected by PWD were selected and surveyed on slopes and aspects with similar environmental conditions. In sites that had been infected, soil bulk density was reduced, and the difference among the groups was statistically...

The Hengduan Mountains, with their strong altitudinal vegetation zonation, form a biodiversity hotspot which offers the potential for comparison between sites in order to understand how this zonation arose and how it has responded to climate change and human impacts through time. This paper presents a 22 570-year pollen record of vegetational and climatic change based on a core 320 cm in depth ...