Celebrating Plants and People
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New Discoveries In Early Domestication Of African Crops May Lead To A Brighter Future
Generations of archaeologists have studied plant domestication in the Middle East as well as in Asia and the Americas. “But Africa has very much lagged behind,” (Click on title for full story.)
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Ancient Shaman Carried A Pharmacopeia Of Psychedelic Plants
Not only does the presence of numerous compounds suggest simultaneous use of drugs and earlier use of ayahuasca, in particular, but it also indicates intricate botanical knowledge by the owner of the pouch and an effort to acquire hallucinogenic plants, as the plants came from different regions of mostly tropical South America. (Click on title for full story.)
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Pollinators Need Nectar All Season, Not Only In Spring And Summer
Providing more pollen and nectar rich flowers on farmland is certainly part of the solution. But this new research shows that if we want to be most effective, we must consider the timing of both food supply and pollinator demand. (Click on title for full story.)
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Wild Birds Are Disappearing But Home Landscapes Can Welcome The Survivors
Findings suggest that although the presence of bird species, bird abundance and the number of bird species all decreased over time, in areas where homeowners provided desert landscaping – fine gravel and drought-tolerant, desert-adapted vegetation – some desert specialist birds such as verdin and cactus wren could still be found. (Click on title for full story.)
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Date Palms Survive Extreme Heat Thanks To Their Specialized Waxy Coating
Because the palm does not “sweat”, its leaves sometimes reach extremely high temperatures: they can be 11 degrees Celsius above the air temperature. How can it be that the leaves do not dry out at these high temperatures? (Click on title for full story)
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Will The Next Great Bamboo Die-Off Spell The End For Giant Pandas?
Our results showed that the Qinling Mountains could experience large-scale bamboo flowering leading to a high risk of widespread food shortages for the giant pandas by 2020. The Minshan Mountains could similarly experience a large-scale bamboo flowering with a high risk for giant pandas between 2020 and 2030 without suitable alternative habitat in the surrounding areas. These scenarios highlight thus-far unforeseen dangers of conserving giant pandas in a fragmented habitat. (Click on title for full story)
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Flower Preference Among Bees Varies From Males To Females
We see some intriguing patterns, where certain plant families seem relatively preferred or avoided by male bees, or where males have relatively less appetite for visiting flowers that only produce pollen and not nectar.That could help pinpoint the right mix of flowers to improve bee conservation down the road. (Click on title for full story.)
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Forests Against Climate Change: The Results May Be Mixed
“What we were really surprised about was the magnitude at which these trees are emitting methane,” (Click on title for full story.)
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Know When To Mow: Strategic Mowing Can Help Monarch Butterflies
Strategic grassland management benefits monarchs in two ways. First, monarchs lay more eggs on young milkweed – new growth after mowing – the sole food source for the butterflies in their larval stage. Second, fewer predators visit immature milkweed; more come during its mature stages, such as when it flowers. (Click on title for full story.)
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The Key To Understanding Forests Past, Present And Future Lies Beneath Our Feet.
The biome-specific dynamics between plants and soil microbes could help scientists understand how ecosystems may shift as climate change brings about warmer temperatures that alter the interplay between trees, microbes and soil, the researchers report. Because the most competitive symbiotic arrangements for a particular biome triumph, scientists would only need to understand how an ecosystem is changing to gauge which vegetation will be moving in and which will be moving out. (Click on title for full story.)