Category: Plain language summary

The need for a strict delimitation of early tree life stages in vegetation ecology

Posted on October 30, 2024October 30, 2024 by David Zeleny

Prepared by Ricard Arasa-Gisbert, Víctor Arroyo-Rodríguez, Martín de Jesús Cervantes-López & Jorge A. Meave

Proposed standardized criteria (left Y axis) for defining seedlings (0 to < 50 cm height), saplings (50 to < 200 cm height and/or < 2 cm diameter at breast height, DBH) and juveniles (≥ 200 cm height and/or 2 to 9.9 cm DBH) of canopy trees.

Native species identity drives plant community growth and biotic resistance

Posted on September 26, 2024September 26, 2024 by David Zeleny

Prepared by Elana V. Feldman, Timothy E. Walsworth, Karin M. Kettenring

Certain high-performing native species (right) were better at growing larger and preventing invasive *Phragmites australis* from growing than others (left). Photo credit: Elana Feldman

To successfully restore wetlands, it is important to understand the factors that allow native species to block invasive species growth.…

Increases and decreases in soil moisture in water-limited plant communities cause asymmetrical responses in biomass but not in diversity

Posted on September 20, 2024September 20, 2024 by David Zeleny

Prepared by Liesbeth van den Brink, Rafaella Canessa, Pierre Liancourt, Harald Neidhardt, Lohengrin A. Cavieres, Yvonne Oelmann, Maaike Y. Bader and Katja Tielbörger

Graphical abstract of the article (schema prepared by Rafaella Canessa)

Changes in rainfall, especially changes in the number of times it rains during a certain period and the amount of rain that falls, are likely to affect plant communities.…

Community ionomics reveals a diversity of mineral nutrition in a species-rich shrubland on infertile soil

Posted on September 8, 2024September 9, 2024 by David Zeleny

Prepared by Juliette Hocedez, Karine Gotty, Vanessa Hequet, Sandrine Chay, Audrey Léopold, Stéphane Dray & Yohan Pillon

An example of “maquis minier” in New Caledonia near Yaté Barrage. Note the contrast between the diversity of plant species and habits above ground and the red substrate, which indicates low fertility (high concentration of iron oxides and limited organic matter).

A deep learning framework for enhancing habitat identification based on species composition

Posted on September 8, 2024September 8, 2024 by David Zeleny

Prepared by César Leblanc, Pierre Bonnet, Maximilien Servajean, Milan Chytrý, Svetlana Aćić, Olivier Argagnon, Ariel Bergamini, Idoia Biurrun, Gianmaria Bonari, Juan A. Campos, Andraž Čarni, Renata Ćusterevska, Michele De Sanctis, Jürgen Dengler, Emmanuel Garbolino, Valentin Golub, Ute Jandt, Florian Jansen, Maria Lebedeva, Jonathan Lenoir, Jesper Erenskjold Moeslund, Aaron Pérez-Haase, Remigiusz Pielech, Jozef Šibík, Zvjezdana Stančić, Angela Stanisci, Grzegorz Swacha, Domas Uogintas, Kiril Vassilev, Thomas Wohlgemuth, and Alexis Joly

The hdm-framework is a generic, free, and open-source framework using artificial intelligence and combining plant species composition and environmental data to enhance vegetation classification.

Determinants of citation impact

Posted on August 25, 2024September 8, 2024 by David Zeleny

Prepared by Jürgen Dengler

Variation of the Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) values of articles in journals represented by at least five articles in the analysed sample, with box height proportional to the number of included papers. All three IAVS journals were well represented.

Interactive effects of fire and grazing on vegetation structure and plant species composition in subtropical grasslands

Posted on August 19, 2024August 19, 2024 by David Zeleny

Prepared by Fernando F. Furquim, John D. Scasta & Gerhard E. Overbeck

(a) Landscape overview, (b) fire and (c) fire + grazing treatments, during August/2019 prescribed fires, in subtropical grassland (Santiago, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil). Photos credit: Fernando Furquim

Worldwide, fire and grazing and their interaction are recognized as the main drivers of grassland plant composition and vegetation structure.…

Fire and grazing interaction in a subhumid grassland: effects on a dominant tussock grass

Posted on June 30, 2024July 16, 2024 by David Zeleny

Prepared by Luis López-Mársico, Felipe Lezama & Alice Altesor

Appearance of a Uruguayan grassland dominated by *Saccharum angustifolium*, showing flowering culms and a high accumulation of standing dead biomass due to the absence of recent burning (left); and three different moments of the burning experiment (right).

Shrubs exhibit competitive interactions with herbaceous plants and shape community assemblage and functional composition in the alpine western Himalaya

Posted on June 21, 2024June 21, 2024 by David Zeleny

Prepared by Bittu Ram and Amit Chawla

Patches of evergreen alpine shrub, *Rhododendron anthopogon*, at Rohtang. Photo credit: Bittu Ram

In the Himalayan region, alpine shrub meadows are one of the major ecosystems that cover a large geographical area and are very vulnerable to climate warming.…