Boots On The Ground Conservation

plant

Invasion of the slugs; Halted by worms

The gardener’s best friend, the earthworm, is great at protecting leaves from being chomped by slugs, suggests new research. Although they lurk in the soil, they seem to protect the plants above ground. Increasing plant diversity also decreases the amount of damage slugs do to individual plants.

In the Northeast, forests with entirely native flora are not the norm

Two-thirds of all forest inventory plots in the Northeast and Midwestern United States contain at least one non-native plant species, a new US Forest Service study found. The study across two dozen states from North Dakota to Maine can help land managers pinpoint areas on the landscape where invasive plants might take root.

World's longest-running plant monitoring program now digitized

Researchers have digitized 106 years of growth data on the birth, growth and death of individual plants on Tumamoc Hill in Tucson, Ariz., making the information available for study by people all over the world. The permanent research plots on the University of Arizona's Tumamoc Hill represent the world's longest-running study that monitors individual plants. Knowing how plants respond to changing conditions over many decades provides new insights into how ecosystems behave.

Big ecosystem changes viewed through the lens of tiny carnivorous plants

The water-filled pool within a pitcher plant, it turns out, is a tiny ecosystem whose inner workings are similar to those of a full-scale water body. Whether small carnivorous plant or huge lake, both are subject to the same ecological "tipping points," of concern on Earth Day -- and every day, say scientists.

Local Genotype Seed - Can be too Local

A scientist from the University of Melbourne is the latest to call for a change in paradigm. If we want to maximise diversity and the ability of plants to adapt we should be encouraging mixing of ‘genotypes’. That is, including seed that has travelled a few miles may be better.

Plants Behave ... and Remember

“I think most people regard plants as being pretty unresponsive and stuck in one place,” laments ecologist Richard Karban of the University of California, Davis. “Now, animals, they’re interestingbecause they can change and act in response to their environment.” It’s a dichotomy Karban doesn’t accept for one second.

Smoke Produces Larger Seedlings

Ecologists have identified a second way in which smoke benefits fire-dependent plants.  We know that smoke induces seeds to germinate. Now it has been shown that chemicals in smoke called karrikins (after "karrik," the Noongar word for "smoke") makes plants more sensitive to lower levels of reddish light, and triggers seeds not only to sprout, but to grow with thicker, sturdier stems.

A chemical ‘smoke signal' enables seeds and seedlings to better ‘see' the light and to adapt their growth to the new conditions, according to researchers at The University of Western Australia.