Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Plant Sciences
Leveraging ResNet-50 for Precision Toxicity Classification in Plants: A Vision-Based Approach to Safeguard Public Health
Published: 2024-10-04
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Plant Sciences
The classification of toxic and non-toxic plants plays an important role in ensuring public safety, especially in agriculture, food safety, and health. Correct identification of these plants can prevent accidental poisoning and promote ecological protection. In this paper, we investigate the application of the ResNet-50 model for the classification of toxic and non-toxic plants. Leveraging the [...]
Collapse and recovery of livestock systems shape fire regimes on the Eurasian steppe: a review of ecosystem and biodiversity implications
Published: 2024-09-05
Subjects: Biodiversity, Botany, Natural Resources and Conservation, Plant Sciences, Sustainability
Shifts in fire regimes can trigger rapid changes in ecosystem functioning and biodiversity. We synthesize evidence for patterns, causes and consequences of recent change in fire regimes across the Eurasian steppes, a neglected global fire hotspot. Political and economic turmoil following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 triggered abrupt land abandonment over millions of hectares and a [...]
Phenological Patterns of Woody Plant Species in a Tropical Dry Forest, Bannerghatta National Park, Bengaluru
Published: 2024-06-28
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Phenology is the study of the timing of recurring natural stages in the life cycle of an organism. These natural stages, such as the plant's reproductive cycles, are being affected by the changing climate. The current study aims to understand the effect of weather parameters on the phenology of dry forests in Bannerghatta National Park. Two transects with 504 reproductively mature individuals [...]
Tundra vegetation community, not microclimate, controls asynchrony of above and belowground phenology
Published: 2024-06-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Plant Sciences, Plant Biology, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
The below-ground growing season often extends beyond the above-ground growing season in tundra ecosystems. However, we do not yet know where and when this occurs and whether these phenological asynchronies are driven by variation in local vegetation communities or by spatial variation in microclimate. Here, we combined above- and below-ground plant phenology metrics to compare the relative [...]
Asian Hornbill Bibliography: a dynamic, online, open-access reference database for use in manuscript citations and hornbill research
Published: 2024-06-18
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies, Forest Sciences, Library and Information Science, Nature and Society Relations, Ornithology, Plant Sciences, Publishing, Scholarly Publishing
Bibliographic databases and citation tools are integral aids to research. The Asian Hornbill Bibliography presents a compendium of research on Asian hornbills by combining an open access bibliographic database with the free and open source reference manager, Zotero. The bibliography, also hosted and made accessible from the IUCN Hornbill Specialist Group website, includes 725 publications, [...]
Navigating phylogenetic conflict and evolutionary inference in plants with target capture data
Published: 2024-05-28
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Biology, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Target capture has quickly become a preferred approach for plant systematic and evolutionary research, marking a step-change in the generation of data for phylogenetic inference. While this advancement has facilitated the resolution of many phylogenetic relationships, phylogenetic conflict continues to be reported, and often attributed to genome duplication, reticulation, deep coalescence or [...]
Multiple Disturbances, Multiple Legacies: Fire, Canopy Gaps, and Deer Jointly Change the Forest Seed Bank
Published: 2024-05-28
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
The manipulation of pre-colonial disturbances in U.S. forests can play a critical role in determining ecological composition, structure, and function. However, our understanding of how concurrent disturbances influence non-tree species is extremely limited in forests. To this end, we used a long-term, multi-disturbance experiment in an oak dominated forest in West Virginia, U.S.A. that [...]
Ten golden rules for restoration to secure resilient and just seagrass social-ecological systems
Published: 2024-05-20
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Marine Biology, Plant Sciences
It is unequivocal that the world has lost a significant proportion of its seagrass, and although glimmers of hope exist, losses continue with many ongoing negative trajectories. First and foremost, we need to put the world on a global pathway to seagrass net gain. Conservation of what remains must be a priority, but we need to increase coverage at rates unlikely to be achieved naturally; [...]
Lianas, to cut or not to cut to conserve forest biodiversity?
Published: 2024-03-17
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Although lianas play an important role in forest composition, structure, and functions, they are considered structural parasites of trees. Both contrasting ideas on the role of lianas in forests challenge practitioners during restoration activities and management decisions might be taken without specific information. Here we evaluated the effects of lianas on their host-trees in a small [...]
Sexual system variation in legumes (Leguminosae): underpinning genomic study with new tools to describe inflorescence morphology
Published: 2024-02-02
Subjects: Biology, Botany, Plant Biology, Plant Breeding and Genetics Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Although the great majority of legume species are cosexual with hermaphrodite flowers, a variety of sexual systems are observed in the family, including monoecy, andromonoecy, androdioecy and dioecy. Such broad terms conceal much variation, details that may be of importance in understanding the evolutionary and ecological basis of reproductive systems. This variation is often inadequately [...]
The role of deadwood in the carbon cycle: Implications for models, forest management, and future climates
Published: 2024-01-11
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Forest Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Plant Biology, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Deadwood represents a significant carbon pool in forests and savannas. Although previous research has focused mainly on forests, we synthesise deadwood studies across all ecosystems with woody vegetation. Storage and release of carbon from deadwood is controlled by interacting decomposition drivers including biotic consumers (animals, microbes) and abiotic factors (water, fire, sunlight, [...]
The dispersal potential of endangered plants versus non-native garden escapees
Published: 2023-10-31
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Amidst global challenges like climate change, plant dispersal corridors are essential. In human-dominated landscapes, urban and rural green spaces are key dispersal avenues. Non-native plants are known to benefit from these, yet the potential benefits for endangered plants remain unclear. To address this question, I compared dispersal traits of endangered native plants with those of [...]
Plant mutations, beyond the clichés
Published: 2023-09-19
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Re-defining common mycorrhizal and fungal networks
Published: 2023-09-06
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
The current use of the term ‘common mycorrhizal network’ (CMN) stipulates a direct link between plants formed by the mycelium of a mycorrhizal fungus. This means that a specific case (involving hyphal continuity) is used to define a much broader phenomenon of hyphae interlinking among plant roots. We here offer a more inclusive definition of the common mycorrhizal network as a network formed by a [...]
Paws for thought: Impacts of animal husbandry on tundra greening in High Arctic Svalbard
Published: 2023-08-08
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Plant Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Dog sledding in High Arctic Svalbard is a key tourist attraction, and the keeping of animals and livestock has historically been in practice in the settlements of the archipelago. The resulting waste disposal practices - particularly those involving the disposal of animal faeces and fodder - hugely enrich soils with excess nutrients. Here, we explore how animal husbandry affected changes in [...]