Published in Annals of botany
Crown shyness describes the phenomenon whereby tree crowns avoid growing into each other, producing a puzzle-like pattern of complementary tree crowns in the canopy. Previous studies found that tree slenderness plays a role in the development of crown shyness. Attempts to quantify crown shyness have largely been confined to 2-D approaches. This stu...
Published in Annals of botany
Within extending urban areas, trees serve a multitude of functions (e.g. carbon storage, suppression of air pollution, mitigation of the 'heat island' effect, oxygen, shade and recreation). Many of these services are positively correlated with tree size and structure. The quantification of above-ground biomass (AGB) is of especial importance to ass...
Published in Annals of botany
Laser scanning technology has opened new horizons for the research of forest dynamics, because it provides a largely automated and non-destructive method to rapidly capture the structure of individual trees and entire forest stands at multiple spatial scales. The structural data themselves or in combination with additional remotely sensed data also...
Published in Annals of botany
Woody plants (trees and shrubs) play an important role in terrestrial ecosystems, but their size and longevity make them difficult subjects for traditional experiments. In the last 20 years functional-structural plant models (FSPMs) have evolved: they consider the interplay between plant modular structure, the immediate environment and internal fun...
Published in Annals of botany
Branch biomass and other attributes are important for estimating the carbon budget of forest stands and characterizing crown structure. As destructive measuring is time-consuming and labour-intensive, terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) as a solution has been used to estimate branch biomass quickly and non-destructively. However, branch information ex...
Published in Annals of Botany
Background and Aims The Arctic tundra, with its extreme temperatures and short growing season, is evolutionarily young and harbours one of the most species-poor floras on Earth. Arctic species often show little phenotypic and genetic divergence across circumpolar ranges. However, strong intraspecific post-zygotic reproductive isolation (RI) in term...
Published in Annals of Botany
Background and Aims Cyanobacteria associated with mosses represent a main nitrogen (N) source in pristine, high-latitude and -altitude ecosystems due to their ability to fix N2. However, despite progress made regarding moss–cyanobacteria associations, the factors driving the large interspecific variation in N2 fixation activity between moss species...
Published in Annals of Botany
Published in Annals of Botany
Background and Aims Previous molecular dating studies revealed historical mass extinctions and recent radiations of extant cycads, but debates still exist between palaeobotanists and evolutionary biologists regarding the origin and evolution of Cycadaceae. Methods Using whole plastomic data, we revisited the phylogeny of this family and found the P...
Published in Annals of Botany
Background and Aims Mangrove plants are mostly found in tropical and sub-tropical tidal flats, and their limited distribution may be related to their responses to growth temperatures. However, the mechanisms underlying these responses have not been clarified. Here, we measured the dependencies of the growth parameters and respiration rates of leave...
