Category: Ecosystems
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The Majestic Live Oak is Losing its Battle for Survival
An icon in American history and literature, broad-crowned live oaks thrive in open savannas but are dying off as they are crowded and overshadowed by the encroachment of taller trees.
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Plants Increase Rainfall
More rain makes for more plant growth: that much is obvious. But now a statistical study of satellite images has added weight to the reverse notion: more plants also make for more rain.
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How Can a Cloud Forest Exist in the Desert?
The forest is especially unique… because it 'is a water-limited seasonal cloud forest' that is kept alive by water droplets gathered from passing clouds — ground fog. The water dribbles into the ground and sustains the trees later when the weather is dry.
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Orange Snapdragons Pit "Evolutionists" against "Creationists"
If Darwin's theory of natural selection fails because critical intermediates — such as these elusive orange snapdragons — perform no function for selection to preserve, then God Himself would have to intervene to help yellow become magenta and vice versa.
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Climate Change Causes Pollinators and Plants to Be Out of Sync
If climate change disturbs the timing between flowering and pollinators that overwinter in place, such as butterflies, bumblebees, flies, and even mosquitoes, the intimate relationships between plants and pollinators that have co-evolved over the past thousands of years will be irrevocably altered.
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When Bees Disappear Plants Follow
In Britain, where bee diversity has fallen and hoverflies have at best held steady, there have been declines in 70% of the wildflowers that require insects for pollination. However, wind-pollinated or self-pollinating plants have held constant or increased
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You Can’t Restore Habitat if You Can’t Get The Seed: Prairie Version
The couple never planned to spend five years building a harvester, but like a barbed needle-and-thread grass seed, once the idea got in their heads they couldn't pull it out.
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Plant Collectors Push Evolutionary Changes
Commercial collecting of wild plants in the Himalayas becomes unnatural selection.
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Common Introduced Weed Threatens Hardwood Forests
Maples, ashes and other hardwood trees are being harmed by an invasive weed that indirectly slows their growth to about one-tenth the normal speed, scientists say.
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Loss of Pollinators Especially Hard on Plants in Biological Hotspots
Species in species-rich regions face two challenges that increase the risk of extinction: habitat destruction, which is occurring at alarming rates in the tropics, and reduced pollinator activity.