and professor of biology at Saint joseph's University advises that it's best to investigate the plant that's choking your columbines
In addition the National park service's Weeds Gone Wild site has a manageable list of factsheets for some of the most common invasives.
A weed that is spreading rapidly in the Mid-atlantic states this Asian native is dispersed by seed and grows prolifically in lawns.
if it's mowed the stiltgrass will just produce seeds on tiny little plants. It's better to wait until the grass matures a little--not to the point where it's actually making seeds
but just before that stage--and then pull it up by the roots. On the other hand Snetselaar notes pulling up Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica) a notorious invader isn't recommended
because it can re-grow from even the tiniest bit of root. Herbicides and repeated cutting and bagging of the stems are prescribed the approaches.
Invasive plants are likely to keep most of us busy for a long time Snetselaar says and factors that we can't control such as climate change
and stormwater runoff will continue to result in new invasions. But though they may present many thorny problems it's not inevitable that the invasive plants will win.
which Arctic vegetation survives. The Arctic's extremely cold wet conditions prevent dead plants and animals from decomposing so each year another layer gets added to the reservoirs of organic carbon sequestered just beneath the topsoil.
Variations in the timing of spring thaw and the length of the growing season have a major impact on vegetation productivity
and proteins involved in each of these branch pathways and this might help us manipulate the discrete functions this hormone regulates Ecker says.
and dead biomass as well as the belowground organic soil horizon mineral soil horizon and roots Friedland said. Co-authors included Dartmouth's Thomas Buchholz a former postdoctoral student and Claire Hornig a recent undergraduate student and researchers from the University of Vermont Lund University in Sweden and the Vermont Department
Meanwhile farmers looking to avoid herbicides often have to combat weeds with tillage which causes erosion.
But no-till requires herbicides to control weeds and even after adoption of the practice by many farmers harmful algal blooms were still occurring in surface waters.
It looked as if no-till while decreasing particulate P loss was leading to increased runoff of dissolved P. Normally
In the current study researchers provided most of the nutrients to crops in the reduced-input watersheds by planting red clover and spreading manure instead of fertilizers.
because the light tilling and in-row cultivation that was done kept weeds under control. Reduced-input rotations strike a medium between conventional tillage
Successes and failures from the first billion acressince 1996 farmers worldwide have planted more than a billion acres (400 million hectares) of genetically modified corn and cotton that produce insecticidal proteins from the bacterium
which evolved resistance rapidly to Bt cotton in India but not in the U s. Tabashnik said.
We've also started exchanging ideas and information with scientists facing related challenges such as herbicide resistance in weeds and resistance to drugs in bacteria HIV and cancer.
and published today in the Journal of Ecology suggest that as pine stands are fragmented increasingly by widespread tree death surviving trees may be hindered in their ability to produce their usually abundant seeds.
With fewer seeds you get less regeneration says ecologist Joshua Rapp affiliated with NSF's Harvard Forest Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) site
Whitebark pine populations vary between producing a high number of seed cones some years and a low number of seed cones other years.
male pollen cones female seed cones wind and proximity. Each year pollen from male cones is carried on the air to fertilize female seed cones perched atop nearby trees.
In low-cone years less pollen is released reaching extremely few female cones says Elizabeth Crone senior ecologist at the NSF Harvard Forest LTER site
In isolated pockets of trees the gene pool is diminished also meaning the seeds produced may be less viable over time.
By combining field data on seed and pollen production for whitebark pines with models that simulate mature cone production this study helps to answer that question for these pines.
They inspected branches from seven whitebark pine sites in western Montana counting the scars left by pollen cones and seed cones.
All the years with a high number of seed cones had one thing in common: a high number of pollen cones says Rapp.
The success of the seeds seems to depend on the amount of pollen produced. Whitebark pine seeds are an essential food source for many animals in mountain habitats.
The Clark's nutcracker a mountain bird can store up to 100000 seeds in underground caches each year. Squirrels also store thousands of seeds underground.
A diminished number of seed cones has an effect on grizzly bears the scientists say; the bears regularly raid squirrel seed caches to prepare for winter hibernation.
In the past low years for whitebark pine cones have led to six times more conflicts between grizzlies and humans as hungry bears look for food in campgrounds says Crone.
Now concerns about viability of whitebark pine populations are one of the main reasons grizzly bears in Yellowstone national park are listed still as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
Their branches retain snow as it blows across gusty mountaintops. Their shade moderates snow-melt in the spring keeping flows down the mountain in check.
All you have to do to enhance the wild pollinators of crops on farmland is increase flower abundance in field margins roadsides or crop edges.'
Also endangered bee species often specialize on flowers that cannot easily be established on farmland such as heather or bilberry.
During cold northern winters deer seek out stands of evergreens with dense crowns such as eastern hemlock northern white cedar and balsam fir.
and forestry bioenergy production and vegetation fires doubled over the course of the past century.
and forestry bioenergy production construction of buildings and infrastructures soil degradation or human induced vegetation fires--and thus not available to other ecosystem processes.
and following the trail of the Eurasian grapevine (Vitis vinifera) in the wild and its domestication by humans this confirmation of the earliest evidence of viniculture in France is a key step in understanding the ongoing development of what he calls the wine culture of the world
and Pinot noir were the best cultivars to grow in Burgundy Dr. Mcgovern noted. What we haven't had is clear chemical evidence combined with botanical and archaeological data showing how wine was introduced into France
This built up a demand that could only be met by establishing a native industry likely done by transplanting the domesticated vine from Italy and enlisting the requisite winemaking expertise from the Etruscans.
and wine in the middle East and Mediterranean) as well as compounds deriving from pine tree resin. Herbal additives to the wine were identified also including rosemary basil and/or thyme
which are native to central Italy where the wine was made likely. Alcoholic beverages in which resinous and herbal compounds are more easily put into solution were the principle medications of antiquity.
Nearby an ancient pressing platform made of limestone and dated circa 425 BCE was discovered. Its function had previously been uncertain.
Masses of several thousand domesticated grape seeds pedicels and even skin excavated from an earlier context near the press further attest to its use for crushing transplanted domesticated grapes and local wine production.
and expansion of a worldwide wine culture--one that has known its earliest roots in the ancient Near east circa 7000-6000 BCE with chemical evidence for the earliest wine at the site of Hajji Firiz in what is now northern
From the beginning promiscuous domesticated grapevines crossed with wild vines producing new cultivars. Dr. Mcgovern observes a common pattern for the spreading of the new wine culture:
Next foreign specialists are commissioned to transplant vines and establish local industries he noted. Over time wine spreads to the larger population and is integrated into social and religious life.
By 3000 BCE the Nile Delta was being planted with vines by Canaanite viniculturalists. As the earliest merchant seafarers the Canaanites were also able to take the wine culture out across the Mediterranean sea.
In the case of Celtic Europe grape wine displaced a hybrid drink of honey wheat/barley and native wild fruits (e g. lingonberry and apple) and herbs (such as bog myrtle yarrow and heather.
#A grassy trend in human ancestors dietsmost apes eat leaves and fruits from trees and shrubs.
New studies spearheaded by the University of Utah show that human ancestors expanded their menu 3. 5 million years ago adding tropical grasses and sedges to an apelike diet and setting the stage for our modern diet
and sedges--plants that resemble grasses and rushes but have stems and triangular cross sections. At last we have a look at 4 million years of the dietary evolution of humans
and their ancestors says University of Utah geochemist Thure Cerling principal author of two of the four new studies published online June 3 by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
and sedges--that grazing animals discovered a long time before about 10 million years ago when African savanna began expanding Cerling says.
The isotope method cannot distinguish what parts of grasses and sedges human ancestors ate--leaves stems seeds and-or underground storage organs such as roots or rhizomes.
C3 plants include trees bushes and shrubs and their leaves and fruits; most vegetables; cool-season grasses and grains such as timothy alfalfa wheat oats barley and rice;
C4 plants are warm-season or tropical grasses and sedges and their seeds leaves or storage organs like roots and tubers.
Well-known sedges include water chestnut papyrus and sawgrass. C4 plants are common in African savannas and deserts.
CAM plants include tropical succulent plants such as cactus salt bush and agave. Today North americans eat about half C3 plants including vegetables fruits and grains such as wheat oats rye and barley and about half C4
which largely comes from corn sorghum and meat animals fed on C4 grasses and grains Cerling says.
and rhinos that browsed on C3 leaves it would appear they ate C3 trees-shrubs.
while human ancestors ate more grasses and other apes stuck with trees and shrubs two extinct Kenyan baboons represent the only primate genus that ate primarily grasses and perhaps sedges throughout its history.
-and-sedge diet when the baboons lived between 4 million and 2. 5 million years ago contradicting previous claims that they ate forest foods.
and Rice alumna Rosa Dominguez-Faus found no scientific consensus on the climate-friendly nature of U s.-produced corn-based ethanol
10.7554/elife. 00421) Green leaf odorsplants have developed many different strategies to defend themselves against herbivorous animals particularly insects.
In addition to mechanical defenses such as thorns and spines plants also produce compounds that keep insects and other herbivores at bay by acting as repellents or toxins.
whereas others--notably compounds called green-leaf volatiles--are produced mainly once the plant has been wounded or attacked.
Green-leaf volatiles--which are also responsible for the smell of freshly cut grass--have been observed to provide plants with both direct protection by inhibiting
Attracting the enemies of the herbivoresthe hawkmoth Manduca sexta lays its eggs on various plants including tobacco and Sacred Datura plants (Datura wrightii.
In an effort to defend itself the host plant releases green-leaf volatiles to attract various species of Geocoris predatory bugs that eat insect eggs and tiny larvae.
One of these green-leaf volatiles released by tobacco plants is known as (Z)- 3-hexenyl acetate
Just like Geocoris bugs adult female M. sexta moths are able to detect the changes in the green volatile profile emitted by Sacred Datura plants that have been damaged by M. sexta caterpillars.
Cacao plant breeders trying to produce a delicious high-yield strain through cross breeding have met with limited success. So the genetic marker could in theory be used to screen young seedlings
and if these young seedlings grow fast enough to escape from herbivores then woodlands can expand. With our analysis of satellite data we could now assess how general this response is.
Similarly Grewell's team found that yeast populated with sugar and starved with glycerin a co-product of biodiesel production could prodfuce high yields of oil that could be extracted
#Human activity echoes through Brazilian rainforestthe disappearance of large fruit-eating birds from tropical forests in Brazil has caused the region's forest palms to produce smaller less successful seeds over the past century researchers say.
and sugar cane development during the 1800's to set up their natural experiment. They collected more than 9000 seeds from 22 different Euterpe edulis palm populations
and used a combination of statistics genetics and evolutionary models to determine that the absence of large seed-dispersing birds in the area was the main reason for the observed decrease in the palm's seed size.
The study appears in the 31 may issue of the journal Science. Unfortunately the effect we document in our work is probably not an isolated case said Galetti.
Galetti and the other researchers found that palms produced significantly smaller seeds in patches of forest that had been fragmented by coffee
and sugar cane plantations and were no longer capable of supporting large-gaped birds or those whose beaks are more than 12 millimeters wide such as toucans and large cotingas.
and palms continue to produce large seeds successfully dispersed by the birds they say. Small seeds are more vulnerable to desiccation
and cannot withstand projected climate change explained Galetti. But small-gaped birds such as thrushes that populate the fragmented patches of forest are unable to swallow
and disperse large seeds. As a result of this impaired dispersal palm regeneration became less successful in the area with less-vigorous seedlings germinating from smaller seeds.
The researchers considered the influence of a wide range of environmental factors such as climate soil fertility
They performed genetic analyses to determine that the shrinkage of seeds among forest palms in the region could have taken place within 100 years of an initial disturbance.
and displaced many large bird populations in the region triggered a rapid evolution of forest palms that resulted in smaller less successful seeds.
Long periods of drought and increasingly warmer climate (as predicted by climate model projections for South america) could be particularly harmful to tropical tree populations that depend on animals to disperse their seeds.
F (5 C). During the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum 55 million years ago tropical temperatures rose by 5 F (3 C) in less than 10000 years.
According to the fossil record rainforests prospered under these hothouse conditions. Diversity increased. Because larger areas of forest generally sustain higher diversity than smaller areas do higher diversity during warming events could be explained by the expansion of tropical forests into temperate areas.
#Gene that helps honey bees find flowers (and get back home) discoveredhoney bees don't start out knowing how to find flowers
or even how to get around outside the hive. Before they can forage they must learn how to navigate a changing landscape
wheat maize rice barley rye millet sorghum soybean sunflower potato cassava sugarcane sugar beet oil palm rapeseed (canola) and groundnut (peanut.
The researcher took a closer examination of a few tree stumps on the edge of the loamy building pit in the neighborhood of Zurich Binz that had been discarded by the construction workers as waste timber.
To counteract this problem producers have included saturated fats such as corn germ beef tallow palm kernel oil and glycerol in diets containing DDGS
For this study corn germ beef tallow palm kernel oil and glycerol were added each to a diet containing DDGS.
the uglier a flower or weed the more allergy-inducing its pollen tends to be.
Ragweed mugwort plantain and pigweed have more than just their unappealing appearance in common--they're some of the worst offenders to allergy sufferers said Robert Valet M d. assistant professor of Medicine and an allergist at Vanderbilt University Medical center's Asthma
Ragweed can produce up to 1 billion pollen grains per plant throughout a pollen season according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.
Of those allergic to pollen-producing plants 75 percent are allergic to ragweed. The relationship between allergy-causing pollens and their flowers is something like a beauty pageant Valet said.
A general rule of thumb is that flowers that smell or look pretty attract insect pollenators so they are not generally important allergens
because their pollen is not airborne. However those that are very ugly or plain are meant to disperse pollen in the wind
In late summer and fall the weeds make their presence known. Common weed allergens include ragweed lamb's quarter pigweed English plantain and mugwort.
This year the pollen count is proving to be high in Nashville according to Valet. The pollen count may change from day to day due to an event like rain
if diseases played a significant factor in vegetation change. The study explores how large-scale pathogen outbreaks were much more infrequent in the past
which suggests the human role in transporting pathogens to new locations such as the international seed trade is a major factor.
For the analysis researchers reviewed 104 studies that looked at exposure to weed fungus rodent or bug killers and solvents and the risk of developing Parkinson's disease.
However in the north of the Peninsula where the climate and vegetation are more similar to those of Central europe their centre of distribution it is much more difficult to find them.
In factduring the Holocene the vegetation evolved differently in the Mediterranean compared with the rest of Europe.
In the Mediterranean the intensity of human activity linked to great aridity led to the substitution of the deciduous vegetation by the typical xerophytic vegetation.
The researchers also described their diet on the basis of their droppings and characterised their roosts the structure of the vegetation on their hunting grounds and the presence of potential preys.
More flexible in the Mediterraneanin the Atlantic as well as Mediterranean domain the observations were consistent with the data available on the ecology of the species. M. bechsteinii prefer roosts carved out by woodpeckers in the trunks of living oak trees located inside the forest
Published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) their study--Bundling ecosystem services in the Panama canal Watershed--examines precipitation topography vegetation
Also slithering it way onto this year's top 10 is a snail-eating false coral snake as well as flowering bushes from a disappearing forest in Madagascar a green lacewing that was discovered through social media
and humanlike eyes a tiny violet and a black staining fungus that threatens rare Paleolithic cave paintings in France.
Selecting the final list of new species from a wide representation of life forms such as bacteria fungi plants
Describing the discoverieslilliputian Violet: Viola lilliputana Country: Perutiny violet: Not only is the Lilliputian violet among the smallest violets in the world it is also one of the most diminutive terrestrial dicots.
Known only from a single locality in an Intermontane Plateau of the high Andes of Peru Viola lilliputana lives in the dry puna grassland eco-region.
Specimens were collected first in the 1960s but the species was described not as a new until 2012.
The entire above ground portion of the plant is barely 1 centimeter tall. Named obviously for the race of little people on the island of Lilliput in Jonathan swift's Gulliver's Travels.
The harp-shaped structures or vanes number from two to six and each has more than 20 parallel vertical branches often capped by an expanded balloon-like terminal ball.
Although the forests where the monkeys live are remote the species is hunted for bush meat
An outbreak of a white fungus Fusarium solani had been treated successfully when just a few months later black staining fungi appeared.
The genus primarily includes fungi that occur in the soil and are associated with the decomposition of plant matter.
As far as scientists know this fungus one of two new species of the genus from Lascaux is harmless.
However at least one species of the group O. gallopava causes disease in humans who have compromised immune systems.
With few exceptions this and other ultra-small frogs are associated with moist leaf litter in tropical wet forests--suggesting a unique ecological guild that could not exist under drier circumstances.
Madagascarendangered shrub: Eugenia is a large worldwide genus of woody evergreen trees and shrubs of the myrtle family that is particularly diverse in South america New caledonia and Madagascar.
The new species E. petrikensis is a shrub growing to two meters with emerald green slightly glossy foliage and beautiful dense clusters of small magenta flowers.
It is one of seven new species described from the littoral forest of eastern Madagascar
Living species of hangingflies can be found as the name suggests hanging beneath foliage where they capture other insects as food.
and represent a rare example of an insect mimicking a gymnosperm 165 million years ago before an explosive radiation of flowering plants.
Newer and more effective methods can begin to be used to ensure that the over 200 million tree seedlings planted each year in Sweden are as strong healthy and well-adapted as possible for both poor and rich soil areas in different parts
#Bee and wild flower biodiversity loss slowsdeclines in the biodiversity of pollinating insects and wild plants have slowed in recent years according to a new study.
British wildflower diversity had declined about 20 per cent from the 1950s to the 1980s but again the declines have ceased in the past 20 years.
and of wildflowers had declined. Our new work is based on a much bigger dataset and improved analytic methods and it reveals much more detail about the scale and timing of biodiversity losses.
or to the quality of the pollination services they provide to wildflowers or agricultural crops.
#Drought makes Borneos trees flower at the same timetropical plants flower at supra-annual irregular intervals.
In addition mass flowering is typical for the tropical forests in Borneo and elsewhere where hundreds of different plant timber species from the Dipterocarpaceae family flower synchronously.
An international research team headed up by evolutionary biologists at the University of Zurich has identified now two genes responsible for the flowering of a tropical deciduous tree species Shorea beccariana.
Kentaro Shimizu and their Malaysian Taiwanese and Japanese colleagues collected multiple buds from a single Shorea beccariana tree shortly before the start of flowering.
Given the fact that Shorea is a giant tree having its crown at 40 meters ofheight this sample collection was not easy at all says Shimizu.
Kobayashi concludes that Flowering in Shorea beccariana is triggered by a four-week drought in combination with elevated sucrose levels.
when the seeds needed could be collected. The genes that have been identified now indicate when mass flowering is about to happen.
Now for the first time dendritic or tree like polymers have been synthesised in bulk with branch points after every few monomers of the build process.
When the logging machinery moves on what it usually leaves behind are piles of branches and tops.
Norway possesses major unexploited energy resources in the form of these branches and tops--known in their Norwegian acronym as GROT (see Fact-box).
The transformation is effected via a process called torrefaction a sort of extreme sauna for timber and vegetation.
#Whodunnit of Irish potato famine solvedan international team of scientists reveals that a unique strain of potato blight they call HERB-1 triggered The irish potato famine of the mid-nineteenth century.
Phytophthora infestans changed the course of history. Even today The irish population has recovered still not to pre-famine levels.
and the US reconstructed the spread of the potato blight pathogen from dried plants. Although these were 170 to 120 years old they were found to have many intact pieces of DNA.
The researchers examined the historical spread of the funguslike oomycete Phytophthora infestans known as The irish potato famine pathogen.
and The americas as well as two closely related Phytophthora species. The scientists were able to estimate with confidence
when the various Phytophthora strains diverged from each other during evolutionary time. The HERB-1 strain of Phytophthora infestans likely emerged in the early 1800s
and continued its global conquest throughout the 19th century. Only in the twentieth century after new potato varieties were introduced was replaced HERB-1 by another Phytophthora infestans strain US-1. The scientists found several connections with historic events.
The first contact between Europeans and Americans in Mexico in the sixteenth century coincides with a remarkable increase in the genetic diversity of Phytophthora.
The social upheaval during that time may have led to a spread of the pathogen from its center of origin in Toluca Valley Mexico.
The international team came to these conclusions after deciphering the entire genomes of 11 historical samples of Phytophthora infestans from potato leaves collected over more than 50 years.
Because of the remarkable DNA quality and quantity in the herbarium samples the research team could evaluate the entire genome of Phytophthora infestans and its host the potato within just a few weeks.
Many environmental factors leave an imprint on the carbon contained in tree trunks from this period.
ie. some seeds and tuberous plants such as freshwater chestnuts lotus root and the fern root the addition of starch from palms was unexpected totally and very exciting.
and washed out of the trunk pith dried as flour and of course eaten. It is nontoxic not particularly tasty
and various roots raises the intriguing possibility that these plants may have been planted nearby the settlement.
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