Why did heterospory evolve?

The primitive land plant life cycle featured the production of spores of unimodal size, a condition called homospory. The evolution of bimodal size distributions with small male spores and large female spores, known as heterospory, was an innovation that occurred repeatedly in the history of land plants. The importance of desiccation‐resistant spores for colonization of the land is well known, but the adaptive value of heterospory has never been well established. It was an addition to a sexual life cycle that already involved male and female gametes. Its role as a precursor to the evolution of seeds has received much attention, but this is an evolutionary consequence of heterospory that cannot explain the transition from homospory to heterospory (and the lack of evolutionary reversal from heterospory to homospory). Enforced outcrossing of gametophytes has often been mentioned in connection to heterospory, but we review the shortcomings of this argument as an explanation of the selective advantage of heterospory. Few alternative arguments concerning the selective forces favouring heterospory have been proposed, a paucity of attention that is surprising given the importance of this innovation in land plant evolution. In this review we highlight two ideas that may lead us to a better understanding of why heterospory evolved. First, models of optimal resource allocation – an approach that has been used for decades in evolutionary ecology to help understand parental investment and other life‐history patterns – suggest that an evolutionary increase in spore size could reach a threshold at which small spores yielding small, sperm‐producing gametophytes would return greater fitness per unit of resource investment than would large spores and bisexual gametophytes. With the advent of such microspores, megaspores would evolve under frequency‐dependent selection. This argument can account for the appearance of heterospory in the Devonian, when increasingly tall and complex vegetative communities presented competitive conditions that made large spore size advantageous. Second, heterospory is analogous in many ways to anisogamy. Indeed, heterospory is a kind of re‐invention of anisogamy within the context of a sporophyte‐dominant land plant life cycle. The evolution of anisogamy has been the subject of important theoretical and empirical investigation. Recent work in this area suggests that mate‐encounter dynamics set up selective forces that can drive the evolution of anisogamy. We suggest that similar dispersal and mating dynamics could have underlain spore size differentiation. The two approaches offer predictions that are consistent with currently available data but could be tested far more thoroughly. We hope to re‐establish attention on this neglected aspect of plant evolutionary biology and suggest some paths for empirical investigation.     

Individualistic responses of forest herb traits to environmental change

• Intraspecific trait variation (ITV; i.e. variability in mean and/or distribution of plant attribute values within species) can occur in response to multiple drivers. Environmental change and land‐use legacies could directly alter trait values within species but could also affect them indirectly through changes in vegetation cover. Increasing variability in environmental conditions could lead to more ITV, but responses might differ among species. Disentangling these drivers on ITV is necessary to accurately predict plant community responses to global change.
• We planted herb communities into forest soils with and without a recent history of agriculture. Soils were collected across temperate European regions, while the 15 selected herb species had different colonizing abilities and affinities to forest habitat. These mesocosms (384) were exposed to two‐level full‐factorial treatments of warming, nitrogen addition and illumination. We measured plant height and specific leaf area (SLA).
• For the majority of species, mean plant height increased as vegetation cover increased in response to light addition, warming and agricultural legacy. The coefficient of variation (CV) for height was larger in fast‐colonizing species. Mean SLA for vernal species increased with warming, while light addition generally decreased mean SLA for shade‐tolerant species. Interactions between treatments were not important predictors.
• Environmental change treatments influenced ITV, either via increasing vegetation cover or by affecting trait values directly. Species’ ITV was individualistic, i.e. species responded to different single resource and condition manipulations that benefited their growth in the short term. These individual responses could be important for altered community organization after a prolonged period.

     

A spatial panel statistical analysis on cultivated land conversion and chinese economic growth

The conflict between cultivated land protection and economic development has become increasingly acute in recent years. Despite, intensive researches made on this conflict, little attention has been paid to the spatial correlation of variables. In view of this, the paper introduces the spatial panel regression model to estimate, and test whether the relationship between economic growth and cultivated land conversion conforms to Kuznets curve. Research results show that the area of converted cultivated land in China exhibits strong spatial auto-correlation; the spatial panel model with time effect and fixed effect is more stable and significant than conventional panel mode, and that the relationship between economic growth and cultivated land conversion agrees with the inverted U-shape of Kuznets curve, with inflection point occurring when average per capita GDP reaches ¥31330.93 (calculated at comparable price of 1999). On the basis of analysis, it is suggested that the government, with a view to developing economy alongside protecting cultivated land, should attach more importance to land use and planning in the future, pay more attention to the spatial correlation of cultivated land planning in adjacent areas and make greater efforts to increase the input–output ratio of land.     

Evaluation of automated analysis of 15N and total N in plant material and soil

Simultaneous determination of ¹⁵N and total N using an automated nitrogen analyser interfaced to a continuous-flow isotope ratio mass spectrometer (ANA-MS method) was evaluated. The coefficient of variation (CV) of repeated analyses of homogeneous standards and samples at natural abundance was lower than 0.1%. The CV of repeated analyses of ¹⁵N-labelled plant material and soil samples varied between 0.3% and 1.1%. The reproductibility of repeated total N analyses using the automated method was comparable to results obtained with a semi-micro Kjeldahl procedure. However, the automated method gave results which were 3% to 5% higher than those obtained with the Kjeldahl procedure. Since only small samples can be analysed, careful sample homogenization and fine grinding are very important. Evaluation of a diffusion method for preparing nitrate and ammonium in solution for automated ¹⁵N analysis showed that the recovery of inorganic N in the NH₃ trap was lower when the N was diffused from water than from 2 M KCl. The results also indicated that different proportions of the NO₃ ^- and the NH₄ ⁺ in aqueous solution were recovered in the trap after combined diffusion. The method is most suited for diffusing either NO₃ ^- or NH₄ ⁺ alone, but can be used for combined diffusion of the two ions.     

The fifteenth- and twentieth-century colonization of the Basin of Mexico by the Great-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus)

Historical evidence indicates that Great‐tailed Grackles colonized the Basin of Mexico from the Gulf Coast lowlands in the fifteenth century. They were probably assisted by an intentional introduction, but colonization succeeded because of anthropogenic habitat alterations over the previous two centuries. During the Colonial period, grackles withdrew from the Basin, only to recolonize it in recent decades. This withdrawal was also due probably to changes in land use, including drainage of much of the water from the Basin's lakes.     

Effects of forest disturbances on aquatic insect assemblages

Natural and human‐made disasters such as floods and logging occur in and around rivers. Stream‐dwelling aquatic insects respond to these disturbances in various ways. Primary consumers among them rely greatly on algae and leaf litter from riparian vegetation as food. Therefore, once a disturbance such as a flood has occurred, insects may find it difficult to find food in a stream, and the aquatic insect assemblage can be impacted greatly as a result. Disturbances in riparian areas also increase fine sediment loads into streams, damaging habitat and altering the aquatic insect assemblage. Deforestation impacts not only terrestrial but also aquatic animals. In this review paper, aquatic insect assemblages are assessed according to alterations in land use in and around streams. Following this paper, it is expected that clarification of aquatic insect fauna and their life cycles will progress and that the distribution and habitat use of aquatic insects will be afforded greater attention in forest management.     

Design and operation of a completely automated Beckman microsequencer

A unique, efficient, and inexpensive system has been designed and built for the automatic conversion of anilinothiazolinone derivatives extracted from a Beckman spinning-cup sequencer with subsequent on-line high-pressure liquid chromatography separation of the phenylthiohydantoin derivatives. The Auto Converter-Auto Sampler system is controlled by a tape programmer or microprocessor and operates by transfer of the sample from the conversion vial into an HPLC injection loop by nitrogen pressure. Incorporation of a minor programming change on the sequencer allows the introduction of nitrogen vapor into the spinning cup during phenylisothiocyanate coupling. These modifications have resulted in a completely automated subnanomole protein sequencer.     

Water inputs across a tropical montane landscape in Veracruz,Mexico: synergistic effects of land cover,rain and fog seasonality,and interannual precipitation variability

Land‐cover change can alter the spatiotemporal distribution of water inputs to mountain ecosystems, an important control on land‐surface and land‐atmosphere hydrologic fluxes. In eastern Mexico, we examined the influence of three widespread land‐cover types, montane cloud forest, coffee agroforestry, and cleared areas, on total and net water inputs to soil. Stand structural characteristics, as well as rain, fog, stemflow, and throughfall (water that falls through the canopy) water fluxes were measured across 11 sites during wet and dry seasons from 2005 to 2008. Land‐cover type had a significant effect on annual and seasonal net throughfall (NTF <0=canopy water retention plus canopy evaporation; NTF >0=fog water deposition). Forest canopies retained and/or lost to evaporation (i.e. NTF<0) five‐ to 11‐fold more water than coffee agroforests. Moreover, stemflow was fourfold higher under coffee shade than forest trees. Precipitation seasonality and phenological patterns determined the magnitude of these land‐cover differences, as well as their implications for the hydrologic cycle. Significant negative relationships were found between NTF and tree leaf area index (R²=0.38, P<0.002), NTF and stand basal area (R²=0.664, P<0.002), and stemflow and epiphyte loading (R²=0.414, P<0.001). These findings indicate that leaf and epiphyte surface area reductions associated with forest conversion decrease canopy water retention/evaporation, thereby increasing throughfall and stemflow inputs to soil. Interannual precipitation variability also altered patterns of water redistribution across this landscape. Storms and hurricanes resulted in little difference in forest‐coffee wet season NTF, while El Niño Southern Oscillation was associated with a twofold increase in dry season rain and fog throughfall water deposition. In montane headwater regions, changes in water delivery to canopies and soils may affect infiltration, runoff, and evapotranspiration, with implications for provisioning (e.g. water supply) and regulating (e.g. flood mitigation) ecosystem services.