Tree diversity,tree height and environmental harshness in eastern and western North America

Does variation in environmental harshness explain local and regional species diversity gradients? We hypothesise that for a given life form like trees, greater harshness leads to a smaller range of traits that are viable and thereby also to lower species diversity. On the basis of a strong dependence of maximum tree height on site productivity and other measures of site quality, we propose maximum tree height as an inverse measure of environmental harshness for trees. Our results show that tree species richness is strongly positively correlated with maximum tree height across multiple spatial scales in forests of both eastern and western North America. Maximum tree height co‐varied with species richness along gradients from benign to harsh environmental conditions, which supports the hypothesis that harshness may be a general mechanism limiting local diversity and explaining diversity gradients within a biogeographic region.     

Seasonal bulk xylem pressure in temperate broadleaf eudicot trees: a case study for sugar long-distance transport and signaling

Sugars regulate growth, development, and defense in trees. Sugars are also important signaling molecules and are transported over long distances via xylem and phloem. Sucrose loading to tracheids and vessels is associated with bulk xylem pressure and occurs seasonally in temperate broadleaf eudicot trees. Following restoration of xylem hydraulic conductivity in spring, sugars are unloaded from xylem sap at apical branches and deposited as starch before growth of shoot apical meristems. Growth of cambia and shoot apical meristems leads to starch catabolism that yields hexose-phosphates to fuel cell growth and regulate other signal networks. The contrast between cell molecular biology of Arabidopsis and physiology of temperate broadleaf eudicot trees indicates the importance of phosphorylation in long-distance sugar signaling. Hexokinase, acting as a hub for signal and hormone networks, is likely an important regulator of sugar signaling in response to stimuli such as energy status, sugar status, and environmental conditions. The comparative analysis suggested here could help bridge physiology and detailed molecular mechanisms regarding physiology of trees.     

Simulation of Rhythmic Tree Growth under Constant Conditions

The observed rhythmic growth of trees under relatively uniform environmental conditions has been ascribed by some authors to endogenous factors, by others to slight fluctuations of environmental factors. A model for the simulation of rhythmic growth was developed based on the assumption that endogenous rhythms can result from feedback interaction between two potentially continuous processes, like shoot and root growth, if the slower process is rate limiting for the faster one. Rhythmic growth in trees would be the consequence of feedback mechanisms needed for maintaining a constant shoot: root ratio. Period length of the rhythms depends upon the rates of the growth processes involved. Environmental factors modify period length through affecting growth rates. Growth patterns predicted by the model compare well with growth measurements of tropical trees. The transition from intermittent to continuous growth, as observed under certain conditions, can be simulated by varying a single parameter in the model.     

Plant TOR signaling components

Cell growth is a process that needs to be tightly regulated. Cells must be able to sense environmental factors like nutrient abundance, the energy level or stress signals and coordinate growth accordingly. The Target Of Rapamycin (TOR) pathway is a major controller of growth-related processes in all eukaryotes. If environmental conditions are favorable, the TOR pathway promotes cell and organ growth and restrains catabolic processes like autophagy. Rapamycin is a specific inhibitor of the TOR kinase and acts as a potent inhibitor of TOR signaling. As a consequence, interfering with TOR signaling has a strong impact on plant development. This review summarizes the progress in the understanding of the biological significance and the functional analysis of the TOR pathway in plants.     

Using regression trees to predict alpha diversity based upon geographical and habitat characteristics

Different environmental factors act as driving forces of diversity at different scales of analysis; and also the effect of one environmental factor changes as the scale of analysis changes. Most studies rely on multiple regression models, and such models tend to mix-up the effect of all factors and assume that factors effects are additive. We believe that the effect of environment on diversity should be characterized by a hierarchical structure with coarse scale factors, like geographical tropics to poles gradients, defining the envelope of possible diversity conditions, and other more local factors, like habitat structure, being responsible for the fine tuning of diversity. This structure is most efficiently modeled with regression trees. We show that for six habitat types in Greek protected areas regression tree models were able to describe plant species richness based upon environmental factors considerably more efficiently than multiple regression models. More importantly when the models were extrapolated to other sites in Greece, outside their domain, the differences between the predictive ability of the two approaches was magnified. The tree models picked up important ecological characteristics, and a hierarchical structure that used coarse scale factors, like latitude and longitude, for the coarse scale estimate of alpha diversity, and finer scale factors like fragmentation, for the fine-tuning of the estimation. Therefore, we advocate that the regression tree methodology is most appropriate for modeling the relationship between diversity and environmental factors, and the use of the classical regression approaches might be misleading.     

What Makes a Fly Enter Diapause?

Diapause is a dormant state that insects may undergo as a response to changing environmental conditions. In flies, like many insects inhabiting temperate zones, diapause occurs generally during the winter months when ambient temperatures are cool and food sources scarce. Whilst the environmental factors involved in determining diapause have been known for a long time, the genes and molecular events controlling its initiation are poorly understood. Here I outline the factors that initiate diapause and highlight recent studies that implicate insulin signaling in its control.     

Electrical signals in avocado trees: Responses to light and water availability conditions

Plant responses to environmental changes are associated with electrical excitability and signaling; automatic and continuous measurements of electrical potential differences (ΔEP) between plant tissues can be effectively used to study information transport mechanisms and physiological responses that result from external stimuli on plants. The generation and conduction of electrochemical impulses within plant different tissues and organs, resulting from abiotic and biotic changes in environmental conditions is reported. In this work, electrical potential differences are monitored continuously using Ag/AgCl microelectrodes, inserted 5 mm deep into sapwood at two positions in the trunks of several Avocado trees. Electrodes are referenced to a non polarisable Ag/AgCl microelectrode installed 20 cm deep in the soil. Systematic patterns of ΔEP during absolute darkness, day-night cycles and different conditions of soil water availability are discussed as alternative tools to assess early plant stress conditions.Key words: plant electrical potential, light and dark cycles, water availability, plant signaling, avocado trees, plant sensors, irrigation automation     

What makes a fly enter diapause?

Diapause is a dormant state that insects may undergo as a response to changing environmental conditions. In flies, like many insects inhabiting temperate zones, diapause occurs generally during the winter months when ambient temperatures are cool and food sources scarce. Whilst the environmental factors involved in determining diapause have been known for a long time, the genes and molecular events controling its initiation are poorly understood. Here I outline the factors that initiate diapause and highlight recent studies that implicate insulin signaling in its control.     

Long Tree-Ring Chronologies Provide Evidence of Recent Tree Growth Decrease in a Central African Tropical Forest

It is still unclear whether the exponential rise of atmospheric CO₂ concentration has produced a fertilization effect on tropical forests, thus incrementing their growth rate, in the last two centuries. As many factors affect tree growth patterns, short -term studies might be influenced by the confounding effect of several interacting environmental variables on plant growth. Long-term analyses of tree growth can elucidate long-term trends of plant growth response to dominant drivers. The study of annual rings, applied to long tree-ring chronologies in tropical forest trees enables such analysis. Long-term tree-ring chronologies of three widespread African species were measured in Central Africa to analyze the growth of trees over the last two centuries. Growth trends were correlated to changes in global atmospheric CO₂ concentration and local variations in the main climatic drivers, temperature and rainfall. Our results provided no evidence for a fertilization effect of CO₂ on tree growth. On the contrary, an overall growth decline was observed for all three species in the last century, which appears to be significantly correlated to the increase in local temperature. These findings provide additional support to the global observations of a slowing down of C sequestration in the trunks of forest trees in recent decades. Data indicate that the CO₂ increase alone has not been sufficient to obtain a tree growth increase in tropical trees. The effect of other changing environmental factors, like temperature, may have overridden the fertilization effect of CO₂.     

冰雪灾害后木荷倒木萌枝光合特性研究

采用Li-6400型便携式光合测定仪,对冰雪灾害后夏季木荷倒木萌枝和未受损木荷枝条的叶片进行光合特性研究。结果表明:倒木萌枝和未受损木荷枝条的Pn、Tr和Gs日变化均呈双峰曲线,具有典型的光合"午休"现象,中午Pn降低均为气孔限制;未受损木荷Pn中午午休时间(10:00～15:00)长于倒木的午休时间(11:00～15:00),其自我保护能力强于倒木,且对光适应的生态辐较宽;环境因子对Pn的直接作用由大到小为倒木:PAR>Ca>Ta>RH,未受损木荷:Ta>PAR>Ca>RH。倒木和未受损木荷的RH与Pn分别呈极显著(P<0.01)和显著(P<0.05)负相关,高温高湿、高湿分别是制约倒木、未受损木荷Pn进一步升高的主要环境因子。     

Genetic and environmental contributions to the winter hardiness of conifers

Summary

Both genetic and environmental components are involved in the processes of winter hardening and dehardening which permit needles of conifers like Norway spruce to survive very low temperatures (< - 30°C) over winter and to recover fully in time for the following and subsequent seasons. One of the major environmental effects of increasing concentrations of atmospheric ozone (O₃) in recent summers has been to affect detrimentally the ability of conifer needles to harden properly and at the correct rate the following autumn. Part of the mechanism by which this occurs in the cytoplasm of needle cells has been traced to detrimental effects on both the Δ¹² fatty acid desaturase and the unusual Δ⁵ desaturase which appears to be part of the low temperature survival mechanism of conifers. The genetic component of winter hardening also involves needle lipids. Studies of lipids in the needles of Norway spruce trees of different provenances growing for many years in the UK have shown that they change during winter hardening as though they were still on trees in the original sites throughout Europe from which the seeds of these trees were initially collected.     

Responses to environmental stresses in woody plants: key to survive and longevity

Environmental stresses have adverse effects on plant growth and productivity, and are predicted to become more severe and widespread in decades to come. Especially, prolonged and repeated severe stresses affecting growth and development would bring down long-lasting effects in woody plants as a result of its long-term growth period. To counteract these effects, trees have evolved specific mechanisms for acclimation and tolerance to environmental stresses. Plant growth and development are regulated by the integration of many environmental and endogenous signals including plant hormones. Acclimation of land plants to environmental stresses is controlled by molecular cascades, also involving cross-talk with other stresses and plant hormone signaling mechanisms. This review focuses on recent studies on molecular mechanisms of abiotic stress responses in woody plants, functions of plant hormones in wood formation, and the interconnection of cell wall biosynthesis and the mechanisms shown above. Understanding of these mechanisms in depth should shed light on the factors for improvement of woody plants to overcome severe environmental stress conditions.     

Environmental filtering by pH and soil nutrients drives community assembly in fungi at fine spatial scales

Whether niche processes, like environmental filtering, or neutral processes, like dispersal limitation, are the primary forces driving community assembly is a central question in ecology. Here, we use a natural experimental system of isolated tree “islands” to test whether environment or geography primarily structures fungal community composition at fine spatial scales. This system consists of isolated pairs of two distantly related, congeneric pine trees established at varying distances from each other and the forest edge, allowing us to disentangle the effects of geographic distance vs. host and edaphic environment on associated fungal communities. We identified fungal community composition with Illumina sequencing of ITS amplicons, measured all relevant environmental parameters for each tree—including tree age, size and soil chemistry—and calculated geographic distances from each tree to all others and to the nearest forest edge. We applied generalized dissimilarity modelling to test whether total and ectomycorrhizal fungal (EMF) communities were primarily structured by geographic or environmental filtering. Our results provide strong evidence that as in many other organisms, niche and neutral processes both contribute significantly to turnover in community composition in fungi, but environmental filtering plays the dominant role in structuring both free‐living and symbiotic fungal communities at fine spatial scales. In our study system, we found pH and organic matter primarily drive environmental filtering in total soil fungal communities and that pH and cation exchange capacity—and, surprisingly, not host species—were the largest factors affecting EMF community composition. These findings support an emerging paradigm that pH may play a central role in the assembly of all soil‐mediated systems.     

Partitioning the impact of abiotic factors and spatial patterns on species richness and community structure of ground ant assemblages in four Bornean rainforests

Contrasting theories have been proposed to explain the structure of ecological communities. Here, we studied the impact of environmental factors and spatial patterns on ground‐foraging ant communities in four different forest types of Gunung Mulu National Park in Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia. Forest types differed in their environmental parameters and were inhabited by distinct ant communities, with various indicator species characteristic for single forest types. Three environmental parameters, soil volume, number of trees and amount of leaf litter, had the most influence on ant communities. Spatial patterns were correlated with environmental parameters and also influenced ant communities. Environmental parameters influenced community composition only moderately (r²=0.14), but had a high impact on species richness (r²=0.44). Spatial patterns explained only a small fraction of the total variance in species patterns, while much of the residual space in the ordination space of ant community patterns remained unexplained. We conclude that environmental parameters shape the number of niches within a tropical soil habitat, but identities of species that occupy those niches are accounted for by other factors like competition, traits and neutral processes that may further reduce unexplained variance in species ordination.     

不同树高对荷木液流密度、整树蒸腾量和时滞的效应

人工林面积不断增大,这不仅能解决由于森林砍伐引起的一系列社会问题,而且还对解决水土保持、二氧化碳减排等环境问题起到重要作用。了解人工林的生长特性和蒸腾效率,对植被生长、恢复和管理有着重要意义。为此,该研究连续监测了华南地区12棵不同高度荷木人工林的液流密度,对样树以高度划分等级,采取错位相关法分析不同高度等级胸高处液流与冠层蒸腾的时滞效应。结果表明:气候环境相同时,所有样树胸高处液流日格型相似;荷木林蒸腾量优势木中间木劣势木,所有树木湿季月蒸腾量大于干季月蒸腾量;不同高度等级之间时滞差异显著,劣势木时滞50min,优势木和中间木时滞20min;所有样树干湿季时滞差异不显著,同一高度级两季节时滞差少于10min。这些说明:在干季华南地区土壤水分仍然相对较充足,植物输水阻力没有受到土壤水分降低和长距离水分传导的影响;中间木和优势木时滞短,水力阻力小,蒸腾量大并占据着林段的有利资源;劣势木长势低矮,时滞长,导管阻力大,蒸腾量少,光合作用需要的水热资源少,所以回馈根部的营养物质少,不均衡的营养循环使得林段分化愈明显,劣势木将逐渐从林段中被淘汰。该文指出在荷木人工林生长后期,对于长势低矮,生命力极弱的劣势木应定期砍伐,这样能增加优势木和中间木对光照及水分等有利资源的分配,提高林分质量,增加林地生产力。     

Whole tree xylem sap flow responses to multiple environmental variables in a wet tropical forest

In order to quantify and characterize the variance in rainforest tree physiology, whole tree sap flow responses to local environmental conditions were investigated in 10 species of trees with diverse traits at La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica. A simple model was developed to predict tree sap flow responses to a synthetic environmental variable generated by a principle components analysis. The best fit was obtained with a sigmoid function which explained between 74 and 93% of the variation in sap flux of individual trees. Sap flow reached an asymptote where higher light and evaporative demand did not cause sap flux to increase further. Soil moisture had little influence on sap flux. The morphological characteristics of the trees significantly affected sap flow; taller trees responded to changes in environmental variables sooner than shorter trees and high liana cover buffered tree sap flow responses to weather. The effect of species‐specific differences on the model was small; the mean effectiveness of the model was reduced by 6% when parameters were estimated from a single pool of measurements taken from all individuals. The results indicate that sap flow response could be effectively estimated using a simple general model and composite environmental index for these 10 diverse tree species.     

Of Trees and People: The Changing Entanglement in the Israeli Desert

This article portrays the shift experienced in the role of acacia trees during environmental–political struggles as the entanglement of trees and people. Drawing on a four-year ethnographic study around Israel’s Arava desert valley, the article narrates human interactions with these trees amid an environmental conflict fraught with personal and political conflict, opposing perspectives on natural preservation and scientific debate, as well as disputes among environmental organisations. Contrary to current approaches in anthropology that –theoretically at least – confer agency on the non-human, I refocus on the human practices that weave the non-human into the social fabric. In this article, I argue that the trees – not actors in their own right, yet inhabiting a tapestry of people and other elements – are essential to understanding a variety of social processes.     

Subordinate,not dominant,woody species promote the diversity of climbing plants

We aimed to determine which factors explain the relative abundances of climbing plants in a tropical sandy coastal plant community, locally called restinga, in SE-Brazil, where facilitation is an important mechanism controlling shrub and tree diversity. The factors examined were: associations with host trees and shrubs, environmental conditions, associations with herbs and space. We surveyed a total of 84 vegetation patches within two hectares of open restinga vegetation. Climbers, trees, shrubs and herbs were sampled using an adapted cover pin frame approach. Partial constrained ordination (pRDA) was used to partition the variation of climber species relative abundances into four sources: trees and shrubs relative abundances, herb species relative abundances, environmental variables (patch architecture and size), and the spatial coordinates. Linear models were used to model the relationship of climber diversity as a function of the environmental factors. A total of 12 climber species belonging to 5 families were recorded. Associations between climber species with subordinate trees and shrubs were the major determinants of climber presence in these vegetation patches. The support for growth created by these trees and shrubs had a secondary role in explaining these patterns. We found no relationship between tree dominance and climber species dominance in each patch. However, most climbers were associated with subordinate shrubs. Trellis availability at the first stratum was related to greater climber diversity suggesting that subordinate trees and shrubs may be crucial to promote climber diversity in this plant community. Space and associations with herbs had a minor contribution to overall variation. While 15 years of research in the site associated local floristic diversity to dominant trees, our results demonstrate that climber diversity in this community is governed by interactions with subordinate host woody species related to the environmental support for growth created by such trees and shrubs.     

Evidence for the transmission of information through electric potentials in injured avocado trees

Electrical excitability and signaling, frequently associated with rapid responses to environmental stimuli, have been documented in both animals and higher plants. The presence of electrical potentials (EPs), such as action potentials (APs) and variation potentials (VPs), in plant cells suggests that plants make use of ion channels to transmit information over long distances. The reason why plants have developed pathways for electrical signal transmission is most probably the necessity to respond rapidly, for example, to environmental stress factors.We examined the nature and specific characteristics of the electrical response to wounding in the woody plant Persea americana (avocado). Under field conditions, wounds can be the result of insect activity, strong winds or handling injury during fruit harvest. Evidence for extracellular EP signaling in avocado trees after mechanical injury was expressed in the form of variation potentials. For tipping and pruning, signal velocities of 8.7 and 20.9 cm/s, respectively, were calculated, based on data measured with Ag/AgCl microelectrodes inserted at different positions of the trunk. EP signal intensity decreased with increasing distance between the tipping and pruning point and the electrode. Recovery time to pre-tipping or pre-pruning EP values was also affected by the distance and signal intensity from the tipping or pruning point to the specific electrode position. Real time detection of remote EP signaling can provide an efficient tool for the early detection of insect attacks, strong wind damage or handling injury during fruit harvest.Our results indicate that electrical signaling in avocado, resulting from microenvironment modifications, can be quantitatively related to the intensity and duration of the stimuli, as well as to the distance between the stimuli site and the location of EP detection. These results may be indicative of the existence of a specific kind of proto-nervous system in plants.