Best practices, errors, and perspectives of half a century of plant translocation in Italy.

Conservation translocations are becoming common conservation practice, so there is an increasing need to understand the drivers of plant translocation performance through reviews of cases at global and regional levels. The establishment of the Italian Database of Plant Translocation (IDPlanT) provides the opportunity to review the techniques used in 186 plant translocation cases performed in the last 50 years in the heart of the Mediterranean Biodiversity Hotspot. We described techniques and information available in IDPlanT and used these data to identify drivers of translocation outcomes.

Using Plant Functional Traits to Define the Biomass Energy Potential of Invasive Alien Plant Species.

The eradication of invasive alien plant species (IAPS) is mandatory worldwide, but the resulting biomass is still considered waste. The energy use of biomasses obtained from IAPS eradication may represent ecological and economic benefits, creating synergies with restoration projects. We evaluated whether the growth forms and functional types identified using the functional space of 63 IAPS corresponded to a possible bioenergy use through multivariate analysis techniques.

Plant traits poorly predict winner and loser shrub species in a warming tundra biome.

Climate change is leading to species redistributions. In the tundra biome, shrubs are generally expanding, but not all tundra shrub species will benefit from warming. Winner and loser species, and the characteristics that may determine success or failure, have not yet been fully identified.

Global beta-diversity of angiosperm trees is shaped by Quaternary climate change.

As Earth's climate has varied strongly through geological time, studying the impacts of past climate change on biodiversity helps to understand the risks from future climate change. However, it remains unclear how paleoclimate shapes spatial variation in biodiversity. Here, we assessed the influence of Quaternary climate change on spatial dissimilarity in taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional composition among neighboring 200-kilometer cells (beta-diversity) for angiosperm trees worldwide.

Mulching in lowland hay meadows drives an adaptive convergence of above- and below-ground traits reducing plasticity and improving biomass: A possible tool for enhancing phytoremediation.

We aimed to understand the effect of mulching (i.e., cutting and leaving the crushed biomass to decompose in situ) on above- and below-ground plant functional traits and whether this practice may be a potential tool for enhancing the phytoremediation of lowland hay meadows.

High exposure of global tree diversity to human pressure.

Safeguarding Earth's tree diversity is a conservation priority due to the importance of trees for biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services such as carbon sequestration. Here, we improve the foundation for effective conservation of global tree diversity by analyzing a recently developed database of tree species covering 46,752 species. We quantify range protection and anthropogenic pressures for each species and develop conservation priorities across taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity dimensions.

Global relationships in tree functional traits.

Due to massive energetic investments in woody support structures, trees are subject to unique physiological, mechanical, and ecological pressures not experienced by herbaceous plants. Despite a wealth of studies exploring trait relationships across the entire plant kingdom, the dominant traits underpinning these unique aspects of tree form and function remain unclear. Here, by considering 18 functional traits, encompassing leaf, seed, bark, wood, crown, and root characteristics, we quantify the multidimensional relationships in tree trait expression.

Small and slow is safe: On the drought tolerance of tropical tree species.

Understanding how evolutionary history and the coordination between trait trade-off axes shape the drought tolerance of trees is crucial to predict forest dynamics under climate change. Here, we compiled traits related to drought tolerance and the fast-slow and stature-recruitment trade-off axes in 601 tropical woody species to explore their covariations and phylogenetic signals. We found that xylem resistance to embolism (P50) determines the risk of hydraulic failure, while the functional significance of leaf turgor loss point (TLP) relies on its coordination with water use strategies.

Climatic and soil factors explain the two-dimensional spectrum of global plant trait variation.

Plant functional traits can predict community assembly and ecosystem functioning and are thus widely used in global models of vegetation dynamics and land-climate feedbacks. Still, we lack a global understanding of how land and climate affect plant traits. A previous global analysis of six traits observed two main axes of variation: (1) size variation at the organ and plant level and (2) leaf economics balancing leaf persistence against plant growth potential.

The association of leaf sulfur content with the leaf economics spectrum and plant adaptive strategies.

Sulfur is an essential macronutrient for plant primary metabolism. Its availability can modulate plant growth in most terrestrial ecosystems. However, its relationship with other leaf and nutrient traits, and hence its contribution to plant functioning, remains unclear.

Climatic and evolutionary contexts are required to infer plant life history strategies from functional traits at a global scale.

Life history strategies are fundamental to the ecology and evolution of organisms and are important for understanding extinction risk and responses to global change. Using global datasets and a multiple response modelling framework we show that trait-climate interactions are associated with life history strategies for a diverse range of plant species at the global scale. Our modelling framework informs our understanding of trade-offs and positive correlations between elements of life history after accounting for environmental context and evolutionary and trait-based constraints.

Allometric co-variation of xylem and stomata across diverse woody seedlings.

Leaf stomatal density is known to co-vary with leaf vein density. However, the functional underpinning of this relation, and how it scales to whole-plant water transport anatomy, is still unresolved. We hypothesized that the balance of water exchange between the vapour phase (in stomata) and liquid phase (in vessels) depends on the consistent scaling between the summed stomatal areas and xylem cross-sectional areas, both at the whole-plant and single-leaf level.

Role of photo- and biodegradation of two PAHs on leaves: Modelling the impact on air quality ecosystem services provided by urban trees.

Urban trees provide important ecosystem services, including air quality improvement. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are among the most important pollutants in air, due to their elevated concentrations and toxicity. Plants can act as filters of PAHs and as "chemical reactors" for pollutant removal, therefore reducing air concentrations.

Plant functional trait change across a warming tundra biome.

The tundra is warming more rapidly than any other biome on Earth, and the potential ramifications are far-reaching because of global feedback effects between vegetation and climate. A better understanding of how environmental factors shape plant structure and function is crucial for predicting the consequences of environmental change for ecosystem functioning. Here we explore the biome-wide relationships between temperature, moisture and seven key plant functional traits both across space and over three decades of warming at 117 tundra locations.

Multiple facets of biodiversity drive the diversity-stability relationship.

A substantial body of evidence has demonstrated that biodiversity stabilizes ecosystem functioning over time in grassland ecosystems. However, the relative importance of different facets of biodiversity underlying the diversity-stability relationship remains unclear. Here we use data from 39 grassland biodiversity experiments and structural equation modelling to investigate the roles of species richness, phylogenetic diversity and both the diversity and community-weighted mean of functional traits representing the 'fast-slow' leaf economics spectrum in driving the diversity-stability relationship.

Inter- and intraspecific variation in leaf economic traits in wheat and maize.

Leaf Economics Spectrum (LES) trait variation underpins multiple agroecological processes and many prominent crop yield models. While there are numerous independent studies assessing trait variation in crops, to date there have been no comprehensive assessments of intraspecific trait variation (ITV) in LES traits for wheat and maize: the world's most widespread crops. Using trait databases and peer-reviewed literature, we compiled over 700 records of specific leaf area (SLA), maximum photosynthetic rates () and leaf nitrogen (N) concentrations, for wheat and maize.

A new method for quantifying the phylogenetic redundancy of biological communities.

The increasing use of phylogenetic methods in community ecology recognizes that accumulated evolutionary differences among species mirror, to some extent, ecological processes. The scope of this work is thus to propose a new method for the measurement of community-level phylogenetic redundancy, which takes into account the branching pattern of the underlying phylogeny. Like for functional redundancy, a measure of phylogenetic redundancy can be described as a normalized measure in the range (0-1) that relates the observed community-level phylogenetic diversity to the value of a hypothetical assemblage with the same abundance distribution of the focal community in which all species had independent evolution.

SoilPlusVeg: An integrated air-plant-litter-soil model to predict organic chemical fate and recycling in forests.

Current modelling approaches often ignore the dynamics of organic chemicals uptake/release in forest compartments under changing environmental conditions and may fail in accurately predict exposure to chemicals for humans and ecosystems. In order to investigate the influence of such dynamics on predicted concentrations in forest compartments, as well as, on air-leaf-litter fluxes, the SoilPlusVeg model was developed including a forest compartment (root, stem, leaves) in an existing air-litter-soil model. The accuracy of the model was tested simulating leaf concentrations in broadleaf woods located in Northern Italy and resulted in satisfying model performance.

Growth-form and spatiality driving the functional difference of native and alien aquatic plants in Europe.

Trait-based approaches are widely used in community ecology and invasion biology to unravel underlying mechanisms of vegetation dynamics. Although fundamental trade-offs between specific traits and invasibility are well described among terrestrial plants, little is known about their role and function in aquatic plant species. In this study, we examine the functional differences of aquatic alien and native plants stating that alien and native species differ in selected leaf traits.