Article
Ecology
Lina Caballero-Villalobos, Francisco Fajardo-Gutierrez, Mariasole Calbi, Gustavo A. Silva-Arias
Summary: Climate change is predicted to strongly impact plant distributions in high elevation sky islands of the tropical Andes, specifically the Polylepis species. The endemic Polylepis quadrijuga in the Colombian Eastern Cordillera may face distribution changes due to climate change. By analyzing environmental predictors and different climate change scenarios, we predict a significant loss of suitable habitat and identify priority conservation areas for P. quadrijuga.
FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2021)
Article
Oceanography
D. C. Napolitano, G. Alory, I Dadou, Y. Morel, J. Jouanno, G. Morvan
Summary: This study explores the meso-to-large-scale effects of the interaction between the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) and the Gulf of Guinea islands. The simulations show that the EUC bifurcates at 6 degrees E, triggering mesoscale activity and spreading EUC waters. Eddies formed near the islands propagate westward, carrying high salinity through the tropical Atlantic. The formation and distribution of these eddies are influenced by mixing, friction, and the location of Sao Tome.
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-OCEANS
(2022)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
C. A. O. B. Figueiredo, C. M. Wrasse, S. Vadas, H. Takahashi, Y. Otsuka, P. K. Nyassor, K. Shiokawa, I. Paulino, D. Barros
Summary: This study investigates the daytime quiet-time occurrence and propagation characteristics of medium-scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (MSTIDs) at the geomagnetic equatorial and low latitude regions of the Chilean and Argentinian Andes. The results show that MSTIDs occur more frequently during specific seasons and exhibit different propagation directions depending on the location and season. Furthermore, the observations suggest that secondary or high-order gravity waves from orographic forcing are the most likely source of these MSTIDs.
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-SPACE PHYSICS
(2023)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Tatiana Cardenas, Kazuya Naoki, Carlos Miguel Landivar, Quentin Struelens, Maria Isabel Gomez, Rosa Isela Meneses, Sophie Cauvy-Fraunie, Fabien Anthelme, Olivier Dangles
Summary: This study found that glacier retreat significantly affects the diversity and composition of bird communities in high-altitude wetlands, particularly aquatic birds. Wetland area, productivity, and humidity were identified as the main factors influencing bird community composition.
DIVERSITY AND DISTRIBUTIONS
(2022)
Article
Plant Sciences
Eberhard Fischer, Dorothee Killmann, Markus Ackermann, Kumelachew Yeshitela
Summary: Pilularia ethiopica, a new species from Ethiopia, differs from other Pilularia species in terms of frond length, sporocarp size, pedicel length, and subterranean habit.
Article
Plant Sciences
Guangyu Luo, Ruoling Huang, Shuiliang Guo, Dandan Li, Jun Yang, Feng Zhang, Jing Yu
Summary: The aim of this study was to investigate the thresholds in the species-area-habitat relationship for bryophytes, variations among different groups of bryophytes, and the effectiveness of choros in predicting species richness. The results showed that there were two thresholds and a small-choros effect in the species-choros relationships of all five bryophyte groups. The thresholds were higher for species groups sensitive to environments. In conclusion, the combination of choros and habitat is better than area alone in determining the species richness of bryophytes on continental islands.
Article
Plant Sciences
Fredrick Ssali, Badru Mugerwa, Miriam van Heist, Douglas Sheil, Ben Kirunda, Mariana Musicante, Anton Seimon, Stephan Halloy
Summary: This study describes the distribution and diversity of vascular plants at high elevations in the Rwenzori Mountains and Mount Elgon National Parks in Uganda. It was found that few vascular plant species were present on high elevation summits, especially in Rwenzori where many sub-plots had no vascular plant cover. The assessment of ongoing dynamics and change in vascular plant life will be critical for future studies.
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Elizabeth A. LaRue, Anna G. Downing, Sheila Saucedo, Arturo Rocha, Sergio A. Vargas Zesati, Vicente Mata-Silva, Michael G. Harvey
Summary: This article examines the relationship between forest vegetation volume and taxonomic and structural diversity. In the US forest macrosystem, vegetation volume is negatively correlated with understory plant and beetle species richness, but positively correlated with tree species richness. Additionally, vegetation volume is an important predictor of heterogeneity in forest structure both within and outside of the ecosystem. This suggests that previous studies focusing on habitat in a 2D context can be expanded to incorporate 3D habitat space, although the strength and direction of these relationships may vary taxonomically or geographically.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Luis D. D. Llambi, Luis E. E. Gamez, Roxibell Pelayo, Carmen J. J. Azocar, Jesus E. Torres, Nelson J. J. Marquez, Monica B. B. Berdugo, Francisco Cuesta, Lirey A. A. Ramirez
Summary: The study highlights the importance of understanding the functional and historical dimensions of vegetation diversity in tropical alpine ecosystems and provides insights into the impact of abiotic filtering on community structuring.
JOURNAL OF MOUNTAIN SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Yoni Gavish, Eric M. Wood, Sebastian Martinuzzi, Anna M. Pidgeon, Avi Bar-Massada
Summary: This study examines how the Richness-Heterogeneity Relationship (RHR) may vary along different environmental axes and the importance of selecting relevant niche axes in studies of species richness patterns. Findings suggest that predictions of richness patterns improve when more than one heterogeneity axis is included in RHR models.
BASIC AND APPLIED ECOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Zoology
Omid Joharchi, Stefan Friedrich
Summary: Two new species of mites in the genus Gaeolaelaps, collected from soil-litter in the Peruvian Andes, are described in this study. These species align with the current understanding of the genus Gaeolaelaps, and this marks the first report of Gaeolaelaps in Peru.
Article
Ecology
Yongzhi Yan, Scott Jarvie, Qing Zhang, Peng Han, Qingfu Liu, Shuangshuang Zhang, Pengtao Liu
Summary: This study identified the small-island effect (SIE) in fragmented landscapes of the agro-pastoral ecotone in northern China and determined the key factors influencing species richness on small habitat islands.
JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2023)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Yuhao Zhao, Nathan J. Sanders, Juan Liu, Tinghao Jin, Haonan Zhou, Ruisen Lu, Ping Ding, Xingfeng Si
Summary: The study assessed beta diversity of ant assemblages on island fragments in the Thousand Island Lake, China, finding that taxonomic and phylogenetic turnover components dominated overall beta diversity, while functional turnover and nestedness components contributed equally. Overall beta diversity increased with increasing isolation and inter-island distance, but abundance-weighted overall beta diversity decreased with increasing island size. These results suggest that dispersal limitation and functional redundancy may play a role in shaping beta diversity patterns in fragmented habitats.
Article
Ecology
Granger W. Hanks, Natalie A. Clay, Maggie Herrmann, Clifton Nunnally, S. River D. Bryant, Craig R. McClain
Summary: This study experimentally tested the effects of area alone on species richness in sub-tidal bay and inter-tidal marsh habitats. The results showed that area alone can significantly impact species richness, without the involvement of other mechanisms.
JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Yannik E. Roell, John G. Phillips, Christine E. Parent
Summary: The study found that topographic complexity is an important factor influencing species richness in the Galapagos Islands, but different TC indices have varying impacts on different taxonomic groups. While incorporating TC indices improved models, no single index consistently contributed to species richness variation across all taxa. Future research should consider broad, multi-dimensional measures of TC to better understand its biological significance.
JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2021)
Article
Plant Sciences
Simon Pfanzelt, Jan Ptacek, Petr Sklenar, K. Bernhard Von Hagen, Dirk C. Albach
Summary: The subcosmopolitan genus Gentianella Moench (Gentianaceae, Swertiinae) has over 170 species in South America and is emblematic of major and rapid radiations in the Andes. Genome size was measured in 39 species, with results showing no taxonomic utility in South American Gentianella, but providing insights into genome size variation and evolution in this diverse group.
ANNALS OF THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Riccardo Testolin, Fabio Attorre, Peter Borchardt, Robert F. Brand, Helge Bruelheide, Milan Chytry, Michele De Sanctis, Jiri Dolezal, Manfred Finckh, Sylvia Haider, Andreas Hemp, Ute Jandt, Michael Kessler, Andrey Yu Korolyuk, Jonathan Lenoir, Natalia Makunina, George P. Malanson, Daniel B. Montesinos-Tubee, Jalil Noroozi, Arkadiusz Nowak, Robert K. Peet, Gwendolyn Peyre, Francesco Maria Sabatini, Jozef Sibik, Petr Sklenar, Steven P. Sylvester, Kiril Vassilev, Risto Virtanen, Wolfgang Willner, Susan K. Wiser, Evgeny G. Zibzeev, Borja Jimenez-Alfaro
Summary: The study assesses global patterns of plant species richness in alpine ecosystems, finding peak regional richness near the equator and mid-latitudes, influenced by alpine area, isolation, and soil pH variation. Community richness peaks in mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, linked to macroclimate, historical factors, and other spatially structured factors. These results emphasize hotspots of species richness at mid-latitudes, suggesting the diversity of alpine plants is related to regional idiosyncrasies and historical prevalence.
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2021)
Article
Plant Sciences
Riccardo Testolin, Carlos Perez Carmona, Fabio Attorre, Peter Borchardt, Helge Bruelheide, Jiri Dolezal, Manfred Finckh, Sylvia Haider, Andreas Hemp, Ute Jandt, Andrei Yu Korolyuk, Jonathan Lenoir, Natalia Makunina, George P. Malanson, Ladislav Mucina, Jalil Noroozi, Arkadiusz Nowak, Robert K. Peet, Gwendolyn Peyre, Francesco Maria Sabatini, Jozef Sibik, Petr Sklenar, Kiril Vassilev, Risto Virtanen, Susan K. Wiser, Evgeny G. Zibzeev, Borja Jimenez-Alfaro
Summary: The study found that plant species in global alpine ecosystems exhibit strong functional convergence, predominantly influenced by resource use strategies. Environmental and phylogenetic dissimilarities have similar effects on community functional dissimilarities, while the impact of geographic distance is negligible.
JOURNAL OF VEGETATION SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Francesco Maria Sabatini, Jonathan Lenoir, Tarek Hattab, Elise Aimee Arnst, Milan Chytry, Juergen Dengler, Patrice De Ruffray, Stephan M. Hennekens, Ute Jandt, Florian Jansen, Borja Jimenez-Alfaro, Jens Kattge, Aurora Levesley, Valerio D. Pillar, Oliver Purschke, Brody Sandel, Fahmida Sultana, Tsipe Aavik, Svetlana Acic, Alicia T. R. Acosta, Emiliano Agrillo, Miguel Alvarez, Iva Apostolova, Mohammed A. S. Arfin Khan, Luzmila Arroyo, Fabio Attorre, Isabelle Aubin, Arindam Banerjee, Marijn Bauters, Yves Bergeron, Erwin Bergmeier, Idoia Biurrun, Anne D. Bjorkman, Gianmaria Bonari, Viktoria Bondareva, Jorg Brunet, Andraz Carni, Laura Casella, Luis Cayuela, Tomas Cerny, Victor Chepinoga, Janos Csiky, Renata Custerevska, Els De Bie, Andre Luis de Gasper, Michele De Sanctis, Panayotis Dimopoulos, Jiri Dolezal, Tetiana Dziuba, Mohamed Abd El-Rouf Mousa El-Sheikh, Brian Enquist, Joerg Ewald, Farideh Fazayeli, Richard Field, Manfred Finckh, Sophie Gachet, Antonio Galan-de-Mera, Emmanuel Garbolino, Hamid Gholizadeh, Melisa Giorgis, Valentin Golub, Inger Greve Alsos, John-Arvid Grytnes, Gregory Richard Guerin, Alvaro G. Gutierrez, Sylvia Haider, Mohamed Z. Hatim, Bruno Herault, Guillermo Hinojos Mendoza, Norbert Hoelzel, Juergen Homeier, Wannes Hubau, Adrian Indreica, John A. M. Janssen, Birgit Jedrzejek, Anke Jentsch, Norbert Juergens, Zygmunt Kacki, Jutta Kapfer, Dirk Nikolaus Karger, Ali Kavgaci, Elizabeth Kearsley, Michael Kessler, Larisa Khanina, Timothy Killeen, Andrey Korolyuk, Holger Kreft, Hjalmar S. Kuehl, Anna Kuzemko, Flavia Landucci, Attila Lengyel, Frederic Lens, Debora Vanessa Lingner, Hongyan Liu, Tatiana Lysenko, Miguel D. Mahecha, Corrado Marceno, Vasiliy Martynenko, Jesper Erenskjold Moeslund, Abel Monteagudo Mendoza, Ladislav Mucina, Jonas V. Muller, Jerome Munzinger, Alireza Naqinezhad, Jalil Noroozi, Arkadiusz Nowak, Viktor Onyshchenko, Gerhard E. Overbeck, Meelis Partel, Anibal Pauchard, Robert K. Peet, Josep Penuelas, Aaron Perez-Haase, Tomas Peterka, Petr Petrik, Gwendolyn Peyre, Oliver L. Phillips, Vadim Prokhorov, Valerijus Rasomavicius, Rasmus Revermann, Gonzalo Rivas-Torres, John S. Rodwell, Eszter Ruprecht, Solvita Rusina, Cyrus Samimi, Marco Schmidt, Franziska Schrodt, Hanhuai Shan, Pavel Shirokikh, Jozef Sibik, Urban Silc, Petr Sklenar, Zeljko Skvorc, Ben Sparrow, Marta Gaia Sperandii, Zvjezdana Stancic, Jens-Christian Svenning, Zhiyao Tang, Cindy Q. Tang, Ioannis Tsiripidis, Kim Andre Vanselow, Rodolfo Vasquez Martinez, Kiril Vassilev, Eduardo Velez-Martin, Roberto Venanzoni, Alexander Christian Vibrans, Cyrille Violle, Risto Virtanen, Henrik von Wehrden, Viktoria Wagner, Donald A. Walker, Donald M. Waller, Hua-Feng Wang, Karsten Wesche, Timothy J. S. Whitfeld, Wolfgang Willner, Susan K. Wiser, Thomas Wohlgemuth, Sergey Yamalov, Martin Zobel, Helge Bruelheide
Summary: Assessing global biodiversity status and trends in plant communities is essential for understanding the impact of global change on ecosystems. The sPlotOpen dataset, compiled through resampling vegetation plots and obtaining permissions from data holders, provides valuable information for exploring global plant community diversity, remote sensing applications, and biodiversity monitoring.
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2021)
Correction
Plant Sciences
Luciana Salomon, Marcela V. Nicola, Martha Kandziora, Filip Kolar, Petr Sklenar
Article
Plant Sciences
Luciana Salomon, Marcela Nicola, Martha Kandziora, Filip Kolar, Petr Sklenar
Summary: This study explored the evolutionary history of Oritrophium, a genus endemic to alpine habitats in North and South America, revealing its polyphyletic origin in the Early Pliocene in the Andes. The genus likely diversified with the emergence of the Paramo during the Late Pliocene and dispersed mainly from South-to-North in the Pleistocene. Oritrophium s.s. represents the first record of a long-distance dispersal from the Paramo of South America to North America. The dispersal pattern within South America was mirrored by the intraspecific population diversity and structure of the investigated species.
Article
Ecology
Zdenka Krenova, Pavel Kindlmann, J. Stephen Shelly, Petr Sklenar, Susanne Sivila, Karolina Bila, Ricardo Jaramillo
Summary: Alpine plants exhibit different strategies based on their latitude, with tropical alpine plants having multiple flowering peaks throughout the year, while temperate and subtropical alpine plants synchronize their flowering within a short period. The diversity in flowering phenology increases the resilience of alpine plants to climate change, but also exposes some species to higher vulnerability.
FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2022)
Article
Plant Sciences
Petr Sklenar, Jan Ptacek, Adam Klimes
Summary: The genome size of alpine plants is not correlated with their resistance to frost and heat. This suggests that genome size is not a reliable predictor for plant responses to extreme temperatures in alpine habitats and climate changes.
Article
Plant Sciences
Jan Ptacek, Petr Sklenar, Jan Pinc, Romana Urfusova, Carolina Calvino, Tomas Urfus
Summary: About 80% of angiosperms form a monosporic Polygonum-type embryo sac, but certain species in the Azorelloideae subfamily have different types of embryo sac and endosperm, which may have played a significant role in their evolution.
PLANT SYSTEMATICS AND EVOLUTION
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Francesco Maria Sabatini, Borja Jimenez-Alfaro, Ute Jandt, Milan Chytry, Richard Field, Michael Kessler, Jonathan Lenoir, Franziska Schrodt, Susan K. Wiser, Mohammed A. S. Arfin Khan, Fabio Attorre, Luis Cayuela, Michele De Sanctis, Jurgen Dengler, Sylvia Haider, Mohamed Z. Hatim, Adrian Indreica, Florian Jansen, Anibal Pauchard, Robert K. Peet, Petr Petrik, Valerio D. Pillar, Brody Sandel, Marco Schmidt, Zhiyao Tang, Peter van Bodegom, Kiril Vassilev, Cyrille Violle, Esteban Alvarez-Davila, Priya Davidar, Jiri Dolezal, Bruno Herault, Antonio Galan-de-Mera, Jorge Jimenez, Stephan Kambach, Sebastian Kepfer-Rojas, Holger Kreft, Felipe Lezama, Reynaldo Linares-Palomino, Abel Monteagudo Mendoza, Justin K. N'Dja, Oliver L. Phillips, Gonzalo Rivas-Torres, Petr Sklenar, Karina Speziale, Ben J. Strohbach, Rodolfo Vasquez Martinez, Hua-Feng Wang, Karsten Wesche, Helge Bruelheide
Summary: “Global patterns of regional plant diversity are relatively well known, but whether they hold for local communities is debated. This study created multi-grain global maps of alpha diversity for vascular plants to provide a nuanced understanding of plant diversity hotspots and improve predictions of global change effects on biodiversity.”
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Plant Sciences
Claes Persson, Bente Eriksen, Alvaro J. Perez, J. Nicolas Zapata, Thomas L. P. Couvreur, Petr Sklenar
Summary: This study describes and illustrates three new species of Valeriana from southern Ecuador. Valeriana plateadensis is found near the highest peak of Cerro Plateado in Cordillera del Condor at 2900 m a.s.l., and is characterized by its shrubby habit, sessile, densely imbricate, spatulate leaves, and 3-lobed corollas. V. yacuriensis is found near Lagunas Negras de Jimbura in the Parque Nacional Yacuri at 3500 m a.s.l., and is recognized by its shrubby habit, petiolate leaves, and 3-lobed corollas. V. xenophylloides is found in the Paramo de Patococha at 3400 m a.s.l., and is recognized by its cushion growth form, the crown of trichomes at the leaf apex, and 3-lobed corollas.
Article
Ecology
Petr Sklenar, Ricardo Jaramillo, Susanne Sivila Wojtasiak, Rosa Isela Meneses, Priscilla Muriel, Adam Klimes
Summary: The tolerance of species to extreme temperatures determines their distribution and vulnerability to climate change. This study compared the thermal tolerance of tropical and temperate alpine plants and found that there were no significant differences in temperature resistance between the two groups. The hypotheses tested did not hold true, indicating that temperature tolerance breadth and resistance to frost and heat do not vary significantly between temperate and tropical plants.
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2023)
Article
Plant Sciences
Rafael Cruz, Adam Klimes, Jiri Dolezal, Petr Sklenar, Jitka Klimesova
Summary: Andean species of Valeriana are an example of plants that evolved woodier forms on islands. This phenomenon was investigated through morphoanatomical and phylogenetic analyses. The ancestor of the South American Valeriana likely had a maximum size of 132 cm and evolved in patterns similar to Brownian motion. The growth forms of Valeriana plants are not directly related to variable levels of woodiness, as indicated by histological analyses.
BOTANICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY
(2023)
Article
Plant Sciences
Jan Ptacek, Petr Sklenar, Adam Klimes, Katya Romoleroux, Romina Vidal-Russell, Tomas Urfus
Summary: The occurrence of apomictic plants is common in deglaciated areas at higher latitudes and elevations. A study on alpine floras in different latitudinal zones of the Americas found that the proportion of gametophytic apomixis is comparable between the temperate alpine zones of the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. It was also discovered that the representation of apomictic species in alpine floras of the Southern Hemisphere has been underestimated.
BOTANICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY
(2023)
Article
Plant Sciences
Martha Kandziora, Petr Sklenar, Filip Kolar, Roswitha Schmickl
Summary: A major challenge in phylogenetics and genomics is to resolve young rapidly radiating groups. This study focuses on the high-Andean Asteraceae genus Loricaria to shed light on the potential sources of phylogenetic discordance. By analyzing hundreds of nuclear loci and plastome phylogeny, the study provides strong evidence for incomplete lineage sorting (ILS) and hybridization within the genus Loricaria, which may have been promoted during Pleistocene glaciations.
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
(2022)