Global urban environmental change drives adaptation in white clover.

Urbanization transforms environments in ways that alter biological evolution. We examined whether urban environmental change drives parallel evolution by sampling 110,019 white clover plants from 6169 populations in 160 cities globally. Plants were assayed for a Mendelian antiherbivore defense that also affects tolerance to abiotic stressors.

Functional trait database for Nova Scotian coastal barren, green roof, and ruderal flora.

This is the first plant functional trait database for Nova Scotia, Canada. The data contained here were collected between 2016 and 2019 from locations around Halifax, Nova Scotia. The species selected for trait collection were chosen based on species inventories taken across Nova Scotian coastal barrens and from green roofs at Saint Mary's University.

Changes in plant community composition and functional plant traits over a four-year period on an extensive green roof.

Constructed ecosystems like green roofs are increasingly deployed in cities to mitigate issues associated with urbanization. To minimize the cost of green roof infrastructure, shallow growing media (substrate) for plants is often employed. Spatial heterogeneity in substrate depth has also been hypothesized to allow greater plant species diversity without adding to the weight.

Improved in vivo measurement of alternative oxidase respiration in field-collected pine roots.

Cellular respiration via the alternative oxidase pathway (AOP) leads to a considerable loss in efficiency. Compared to the cytochrome pathway (COP), AOP produces 0-50% as much ATP per carbon (C) respired. Relative partitioning between the pathways can be measured in vivo based on their differing isotopic discriminations against O in O .

Phylogenetic diversity and plant trait composition predict multiple ecosystem functions in green roofs.

Plant selection and diversity can influence the provision of key ecosystem services in extensive green roofs. While species richness does predict ecosystem services, functional and phylogenetic community structure may provide a stronger mechanistic link to such services than species richness alone. In this study, we assessed the relationship between community-weighted trait values from four key leaf and canopy functional traits (plant height, leaf area, specific leaf area, dry leaf matter content), functional diversity, and phylogenetic diversity to ten different green roof functions, including ecosystem multifunctionality, in experimental polycultures.