Sclerophyll
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Mediterranean Biomes: Evolution of Their Vegetation, Floras, and Climate Open
Mediterranean-type ecosystems (MTEs) are located today in southwestern Australia, the Cape Region of South Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, California, and central Chile. These MTEs possess the highest levels of plant species richness in t…
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The origin and spread of olive cultivation in the Mediterranean Basin: The fossil pollen evidence Open
Olive ( Olea europaea L.) was one of the most important fruit trees in the ancient Mediterranean region and a founder species of horticulture in the Mediterranean Basin. Different views have been expressed regarding the geographical origin…
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Using Landsat Spectral Indices in Time-Series to Assess Wildfire Disturbance and Recovery Open
Satellite earth observation is being increasingly used to monitor forests across the world. Freely available Landsat data stretching back four decades, coupled with advances in computer processing capabilities, has enabled new time-series …
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Cell‐level anatomical characteristics explain high mesophyll conductance and photosynthetic capacity in sclerophyllous Mediterranean oaks Open
Summary Leaf mass per area ( LMA ) has been suggested to negatively affect the mesophyll conductance to CO 2 ( g m ), which is the most limiting factor for area‐based photosynthesis ( A N ) in many Mediterranean sclerophyll species. Howeve…
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Landscape drivers of recent fire activity (2001-2017) in south-central Chile Open
In recent decades large fires have affected communities throughout central and southern Chile with great social and ecological consequences. Despite this high fire activity, the controls and drivers and the spatiotemporal pattern of fires …
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Attributing forest responses to global‐change drivers: limited evidence of a<span>CO</span><sub>2</sub>‐fertilization effect in Iberian pine growth Open
Aim Forest responses to global‐change drivers such as rising atmospheric CO 2 concentrations ( C a ), warming temperatures and increased aridification will depend on tree species and site characteristics. We aim to determine if rising C a …
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Dynamic Carboniferous tropical forests: new views of plant function and potential for physiological forcing of climate Open
Summary The Carboniferous, the time of Earth's penultimate icehouse and widespread coal formation, was dominated by extinct lineages of early‐diverging vascular plants. Studies of nearest living relatives of key Carboniferous plants sugges…
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Evolutionary trade-offs between drought resistance mechanisms across a precipitation gradient in a seasonally dry tropical oak (Quercus oleoides) Open
In seasonally dry tropical forest regions, drought avoidance during the dry season coupled with high assimilation rates in the wet season is hypothesized to be an advantageous strategy for forest trees in regions with severe and long dry s…
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Freshwater megafauna diversity: Patterns, status and threats Open
Aim Freshwater megafauna remain underrepresented in research and conservation, despite a disproportionately high risk of extinction due to multiple human threats. Therefore, our aims are threefold; (i) identify global patterns of freshwate…
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Correlated evolution of morphology, gas exchange, growth rates and hydraulics as a response to precipitation and temperature regimes in oaks (<i>Quercus</i>) Open
Summary It is hypothesised that tree distributions in Europe are largely limited by their ability to cope with the summer drought imposed by the Mediterranean climate in the southern areas and by their competitive potential in central regi…
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Fossil evidence for open, Proteaceae‐dominated heathlands and fire in the Late Cretaceous of Australia Open
PREMISE OF THE STUDY: The origin of biomes is of great interest globally. Molecular phylogenetic and pollen evidence suggest that several plant lineages that now characterize open, burnt habitats of the sclerophyll biome, became establishe…
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Fires in the Cenozoic: a late flowering of flammable ecosystems Open
Modern flammable ecosystems include tropical and subtropical savannas, steppe grasslands, boreal forests, and temperate sclerophyll shrublands. Despite the apparent fiery nature of much contemporary vegetation, terrestrial fossil evidence …
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Impact of Austropuccinia psidii (myrtle rust) on Myrtaceae-rich wet sclerophyll forests in south east Queensland Open
In April 2010, Austropuccinia psidii (formerly Puccinia psidii) was detected for the first time in Australia on the central coast of New South Wales. The fungus spread rapidly along the east coast and can now be found infecting vegetation …
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Logging and fire regimes alter plant communities Open
Disturbances are key drivers of plant community composition, structure, and function. Plant functional traits, including life forms and reproductive strategies are critical to the resilience and resistance of plant communities in the event…
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Alpha diversity of vascular plants in European forests Open
Aim The former continental‐scale studies modelled coarse‐grained plant species‐richness patterns (gamma diversity). Here we aim to refine this information for European forests by (a) modelling the number of vascular plant species that co‐o…
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Reconstruction of Mediterranean flora, vegetation and climate for the last 23 million years based on an extensive pollen dataset Open
In the last 46 years extensive effort has been devoted to the botanical identification of pollen grains from Neogene deposits. This robust approach is the only reliable way to reconstruct past flora and vegetation from pollen archives, add…
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Wildfire in wet sclerophyll forests: the interplay between disturbances and fuel dynamics Open
There are multiple pathways for vegetation to change following disturbances. Understanding those post‐disturbance pathways is critical for managing wildfire risk since vegetation is fuel in a wildfire context. Across forest systems, there …
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Different Natural Selection Pressures on the atpF Gene in Evergreen Sclerophyllous and Deciduous Oak Species: Evidence from Comparative Analysis of the Complete Chloroplast Genome of Quercus aquifolioides with Other Oak Species Open
Quercus is an economically important and phylogenetically complex genus in the family Fagaceae. Due to extensive hybridization and introgression, it is considered to be one of the most challenging plant taxa, both taxonomically and phyloge…
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Environmental Drivers of Holocene Forest Development in the Middle Atlas, Morocco Open
International audience
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Fire‐related threats and transformational change in Australian ecosystems Open
Aim Megafire events generate immediate concern for wildlife and human well‐being, but their broader ecological impacts likely extend beyond individual species and single fire events. In the first mechanistic study of fire effects focussed …
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Can UAV-Based Infrared Thermography Be Used to Study Plant-Parasite Interactions between Mistletoe and Eucalypt Trees? Open
Some of the remnants of the Cumberland Plain woodland, an endangered dry sclerophyllous forest type of New South Wales, Australia, host large populations of mistletoe. In this study, the extent of mistletoe infection was investigated based…
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MODIS vegetation products as proxies of photosynthetic potential along a gradient ofmeteorologically and biologically driven ecosystem productivity Open
A direct relationship between gross ecosystem productivity (GEP) estimated by the eddy covariance (EC) method and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) vegetation indices (VIs) has been observed in many temperate and tropic…
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The middle Miocene palynoflora and palaeoenvironments of Eskihisar (Yatağan basin, south-western Anatolia): a combined LM and SEM investigation Open
Anatolia was a crossroads for mammal migration during the Miocene due to intermittent land connections between Africa and Anatolia and persisting warm conditions. Here, we investigated a palynological section from middle Miocene sediments …
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Late Holocene vegetation changes in relation with climate fluctuations and human activity in Languedoc (southern France) Open
Holocene climate fluctuations and human activity since the Neolithic have shaped present-day Mediterranean environments. Separating anthropogenic effects from climatic impacts to better understand Mediterranean paleoenvironmental changes o…
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Combining conservation status and species distribution models for planning assisted colonisation under climate change Open
Effects of climate change are particularly important in the Mediterranean Biodiversity hotspot where rising temperatures and drought are negatively affecting several plant taxa, including endemic species. Assisted colonisation (AC) represe…
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Lack of vulnerability segmentation among woody species in a diverse dry sclerophyll woodland community Open
Recent findings suggest that tree mortality and post‐drought recovery of gas exchange can be predicted from loss of function within the water transport system. Understanding the susceptibility of plants to hydraulic damage requires knowled…
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Geographic variation in the ecological effects of extinction of Australia's Pleistocene megafauna Open
Recent studies suggest that extinction of Pleistocene megafauna had large impacts on the structure and functioning of ecosystems, including increased fire and shifts in vegetation state. We argue that the ecological effects of mega‐herbivo…
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Direct and indirect effects of fire on microbial communities in a pyrodiverse dry‐sclerophyll forest Open
Fire is one of the predominant drivers of the structural and functional dynamics of forest ecosystems. In recent years, novel fire regimes have posed a major challenge to the management of pyrodiverse forests. While previous research effor…
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A new positive relationship between pCO2 and stomatal frequency in Quercus guyavifolia (Fagaceae): a potential proxy for palaeo-CO2 levels Open
A new positive relationship between pCO2 and stomatal frequency in Q. guyavifolia is presented, which can be applied to the fossils closely related to this species that are widely distributed in the late-Cenozoic strata in order to estimat…
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Contrasting physiological responses to Mediterranean climate variability are revealed by intra-annual density fluctuations in tree rings of Quercus ilex L. and Pinus pinea L. Open
Mixed forests of Quercus ilex L. and Pinus pinea L. are widely found throughout the Mediterranean Basin, being representative of two co-existing functional types: evergreen-sclerophyllous drought-resistant species and Mediterranean-adapted…