Ancient grasslands take centuries to develop
Ecologists are discovering the growth of a biodiverse grassland community can take over a thousand years.
Plant Science from Cell Biology to Ecosystems
Ecologists are discovering the growth of a biodiverse grassland community can take over a thousand years.
While collecting plant material for crop breeding, a team from Aberystwyth University also thought hard about the human side of their work.
Enset, a relative of the banana, provides the staple food for around 20 million Ethiopians, yet is barely known outside of the region.
Is there a better way to control pests than spraying chemicals? Keeping a non-crop habitat nearby can help shelter predators, but new research shows the correlation between conservation and pest-control isn’t simple.
Did flowering plants appear earlier than the fossil record indicates? Two papers independently conclude they did – and suggest what fossil evidence we should look for.
The rise of angiosperms should be studied as part of the global increase in biodiversity.
Climate change could increase biodiversity with a couple of provisos, and those provisos are important.
Plant science has a central role to play in so many of the global challenges facing the world today, including our future food security, the conservation of biodiversity, sustaining ecosystem services, improving global health and mitigating impacts of global climate change. The UK is internationally recognised for its excellence in plant science, and as such is well positioned to help provide solutions across the range of challenges facing the planet now and in the future.
Characterizing ecological niches via Landolt indicator values of accompanying species, Sonnleitner et al. found that niches of four groups (two diploids, one tetraploid, one hexaploid) of Senecio carniolicus s.l. (Asteraceae) differed with respect to temperature, light and soil properties, but not in their breadths.