Some plants can “escape” drought stress by speeding up their life cycles, minimising water loss and allocating more resources to roots when water is available. Over half of the world’s worst weeds are annuals and occur...
For the first time, estimates of comparative seed yield and number for over 800 annuals and their predictor equations have been produced and the ecological importance of these regenerative traits has been illustrated.
How do plants react when circumstances change? One method can be to evolve a local adaptation. Another can be be phenotypic plasticity, changing the shape of the plant to tackle a local problem. Silvia Matesanz and...
Plant growth rates drive ecosystem productivity and are a central element of a species’ ecological strategy. For seedlings grown under controlled conditions, a large body of scientific literature has identified the...
Leaf economics traits are central in understanding and predicting the effects of plant biodiversity on ecosystem functioning. Using soybean (Glycine max) – one of the world’s most widespread crops, Hayes et al. show...