Plants can influence the soil they grow in, and via these changes in the soil they can positively or negatively influence other plants that grow later in this soil, a phenomenon called plant-soil feedback. A fascinating possibility is then to apply positive plant-soil feedback effects in sustainable agriculture to promote plant growth and resistance to pathogens. We grew the cut flower chrysant...

Orange hawkweed is a perennial European plant that has colonized roadsides and grasslands in south-central and southeast Alaska. This plant is forming near-monotypic stands, reducing plant diversity, and decreasing pasture productivity. A replicated greenhouse study was conducted in 2006 and repeated in 2007 to determine the efficacy of six herbicides (aminopyralid, clopyralid, picloram, piclor...

Climate change models for many ecosystems predict more extreme climatic events in the future, including exacerbated drought conditions. Here we assess the effects of drought by quantifying temporal variation in community composition of a complex montane meadow landscape characterized by a hydrological gradient. The meadows occur in two regions of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (Gallatin and ...

McDonald, Philip M.; Fiddler, Gary O. 2007. Development of vegetation in a young ponderosa pine plantation: effect of treatment duration and time since disturbance. Res. Pap. PSW-RP-251. Albany, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station. 23 p. The density and development of deerbrush (Ceanothus integerrimus Hook. & Arn.), other shrubs, forbs, gramino...

To date, it has been thought that endophytic fungi in forbs infect the leaves of their hosts most commonly by air-borne spores (termed "horizontal transmission"). Here, we show that vertical transmission from mother plant to offspring, via seeds, occurs in six forb species (Centaurea cyanus, C. nigra,Papaver rhoeas,Plantago lanceolata,Rumex acetosa, and Senecio vulgaris), suggesting that this m...

High plant functional group diversity has been hypothesized to reduce resource concentrations based on the assumption that species from one functional group acquire resources similarly to one another, while species from other functional groups acquire resources dissimilarly. To determine if functional groups use soil nutrients different from one another, we investigated the impact of removing i...

As wildland fire frequency increases around the globe, a better understanding of the patterns of plant community recovery in burned landscapes is needed to improve rehabilitation efforts. We measured establishment of seeded species, colonization of Bromus tectorum and other nonnative annual plants, and recovery of nonseeded native species in topographically distinct areas within five fires that...

BACKGROUND The Mongolian steppe is one of the most important grasslands in the world but suffers from aridization and damage from anthropogenic activities. Understanding structure and function of this community is important for the ecological conservation, but has seldom been investigated. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS In this study, a total of 324 quadrats located on the three main types of...

Big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata Nutt.) occupies large portions of the western United States and provides valuable wildlife habitat. However, information is lacking quantifying differences in native perennial forb characteristics between mountain big sagebrush [A. tridentata spp. vaseyana (Rydb.) Beetle] and Wyoming big sagebrush [A. tridentata spp. wyomingensis (Beetle & A. Young) S.L. Wels...