How does environment affect biodiversity? Did Humboldt get it right?
Modern botanists have revisited sites examined by Alexander von Humboldt. Have modern advances made the German polymath’s work irrelevant?
Plant Science from Cell Biology to Ecosystems
Modern botanists have revisited sites examined by Alexander von Humboldt. Have modern advances made the German polymath’s work irrelevant?
Jatropha curcas could be an oil crop with major biofuel potential, but the breeding germplasm has little variation. Botanists have found that there is genetic potential in previously overlooked non-toxic jatropha, but it needs conservation.
Aridification has been a major force in cycad evolution, says José Said Gutiérrez-Ortega. It helps to explain why cycads were capable to adapt and diversify in the modern habitats, even when they originated in the early evolution of land plants.
The discovery of ancient large maize corn cobs at the El Gigante rockshelter might change how we think about the earliest complex societies in Central America.
Rhizophora mangle supports a thinner stem of higher mechanical resistance when compared to Avicennia germinans, a co-existing mangrove lacking rhizophores.
Plant species that survived the K–Pg extinction event had fast-growth ecological strategies corresponding to high assimilation rates & low carbon investment