Celebrating Plants and People
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Emus Wander Spreading An Array Of Seeds
Emus are arguably the most important frugivore in the jarrah forest, their generalist diet and gut retention times of up to 100 days mean a large amount and variety of seeds can be deposited in a single scat.
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The Only Plant To Attract Pollinators With Moonlight
At night, the many pollination drops glitter like diamonds in the full moonlight
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Singapore’s Garden City And Invasive Tree Species: How The Forests Are Coping
Singapore and most of SE Asia are expected to be 2 -4oC warmer by the end of this century, with less predictable changes in rainfall , creating a climate that has not existed anywhere on Earth since the Pliocene. Tolerance of drought and temperature extremes may add to the invasive potential of the exotic tree species that have already escaped from cultivation and may allow other species to do so in future
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1,000 Year Old Remedy Kills Antibiotic-resistant Superbugs
Scientists recreated a 9th Century Anglo-Saxon remedy using onion, garlic and part of a cow’s stomach. They were “astonished” to find it almost completely wiped out staphylococcus aureus, otherwise known as MRSA.
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The Evil Side Of Our Love Of Chocolate: Deforestation
When we started walking through these areas we were just stunned by the scale of illegal cocoa production. It is now the major cause of deforestation in these parks, There are parks in Ivory Coast with no forests and no primates, but a sea of cocoa plants.
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Climate Change Is Changing Your Garden
The Third National Climate Assessment confirms that landscapes across the country are changing rapidly. The report predicts that “species, including many iconic species, may disappear from regions where they have been prevalent or become extinct, altering some regions so much that their mix of plant and animal life will become almost unrecognizable.”
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How Mangrove Restoration Goes Bad
Unfortunately, the focus on initial planting forgets the endproduct – the mature forest. Like graduation ceremonies, tree planting is only the commencement, yet media rarely report, if at all, the massive mortalities of failed plantings.
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A molecule from plants and trees could make our roads and roofs ‘greener’
Construction crews may someday use a plant molecule called lignin in their asphalt and sealant mixtures to help roads and roofs hold up better under various weather conditions. It also could make them more environmentally friendly
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Little Known Pollinators Gain New Importance As Bees Decline
As important pollinators, such as bees, have suffered serious declines, it would be prudent to improve our understanding of the role of non-syrphid Diptera as pollinators.
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Are Alien Species A Big Picture Problem Or A Local Menace?
Rather than getting a picture of all the new species increasing and all the native species decreasing, which is the way that the story seems to get portrayed sometimes, we see that the date a plant species arrives in Britain doesn’t predict whether it will be increasing or decreasing.