A repeatable scoring system for assessing Smartphone applications ability to identify herbaceous plants.

The ubiquity of Smartphone applications that aim to identify organisms, including plants, make them potentially useful for increasing people's engagement with the natural world. However, how well such applications actually identify plants has not been compressively investigated nor has an easily repeatable scoring system to compare across plant groups been developed. This study investigated the ability of six common Smartphone applications (Google Lens, iNaturalist, Leaf Snap, Plant Net, Plant Snap, Seek) to identify herbaceous plants and developed a repeatable scoring system to assess their success.

The botanical education extinction and the fall of plant awareness.

Civilization is dependent upon plants for survival. Plants permeate our every moment and our relationship with them will dictate how we will manage the threats of climate change and ecological collapse defining the Anthropocene. Yet, despite the significance of plants and the critical role they have played in shaping ecosystems, civilizations, and human cultures, many people are now disconnected from the botanical world.

Regeneration and growth in crowns and rhizome fragments of Japanese knotweed () and desiccation as a potential control strategy.

(Japanese knotweed) is a problematic invasive plant found in many areas of Europe and North America. Notably, in the UK, the species can cause issues with mortgage acquisition. Control of is complicated by its ability to regenerate from small fragments of plant material; however, there remains uncertainty about how much (in terms of mass) rhizome is required for successful regeneration.

Sudden challenges in teaching ecology and aligned disciplines during a global pandemic: Reflections on the rapid move online and perspectives on moving forward.

The challenges facing higher education in response to COVID-19 are significant and possibly none more so than in ecology and aligned disciplines. Not only did most ecology lecturers have to rush lectures and tutorials online, but also laboratory and field classes. We reflect on our experience of this move and also consider those of 30 other ecology-aligned teaching academics to summarize the challenges faced in the move online early in 2020 and the developing plans for adapting ecology teaching and learning going into the 2020/21 academic year.

Economic value of trees in the estate of the Harewood House stately home in the United Kingdom.

The estates of stately homes or manor houses are an untapped resource for assessing the ecosystem services provided by trees. Many of these estates have large collections of trees with clear value in terms of carbon storage, runoff prevention, and pollution removal along with additional benefits to biodiversity and human health. The estate of Harewood House in North Yorkshire represents an ideal example of such a stately home with a mixture of parkland and more formally planted gardens.

Japanese knotweed (): an analysis of capacity to cause structural damage (compared to other plants) and typical rhizome extension.

(Japanese knotweed) is a well-known invasive alien species in the UK and elsewhere in Europe and North America. The plant is known to have a negative impact on local biodiversity, flood risk and ecosystem services; but in the UK it is also considered to pose a significant risk to the structural integrity of buildings that are within seven m of the above ground portions of the plant. This has led to the presence of the plant on residential properties regularly being used to refuse mortgage applications.

Global peatland initiation driven by regionally asynchronous warming.

Widespread establishment of peatlands since the Last Glacial Maximum represents the activation of a globally important carbon sink, but the drivers of peat initiation are unclear. The role of climate in peat initiation is particularly poorly understood. We used a general circulation model to simulate local changes in climate during the initiation of 1,097 peatlands around the world.

First discovery of Holocene cryptotephra in Amazonia.

The use of volcanic ash layers for dating and correlation (tephrochronology) is widely applied in the study of past environmental changes. We describe the first cryptotephra (non-visible volcanic ash horizon) to be identified in the Amazon basin, which is tentatively attributed to a source in the Ecuadorian Eastern Cordillera (0-1°S, 78-79°W), some 500-600 km away from our field site in the Peruvian Amazon. Our discovery 1) indicates that the Amazon basin has been subject to volcanic ash fallout during the recent past; 2) highlights the opportunities for using cryptotephras to date palaeoenvironmental records in the Amazon basin and 3) indicates that cryptotephra layers are preserved in a dynamic Amazonian peatland, suggesting that similar layers are likely to be present in other peat sequences that are important for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction.

Spheroidal carbonaceous particles are a defining stratigraphic marker for the Anthropocene.

There has been recent debate over stratigraphic markers used to demarcate the Anthropocene from the Holocene Epoch. However, many of the proposed markers are found only in limited areas of the world or do not reflect human impacts on the environment. Here we show that spheroidal carbonaceous particles (SCPs), a distinct form of black carbon produced from burning fossil fuels in energy production and heavy industry, provide unambiguous stratigraphic markers of the human activities that have rapidly changed planet Earth over the last century.

Increased atmospheric SO₂ detected from changes in leaf physiognomy across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary interval of East Greenland.

The Triassic-Jurassic boundary (Tr-J; ∼201 Ma) is marked by a doubling in the concentration of atmospheric CO2, rising temperatures, and ecosystem instability. This appears to have been driven by a major perturbation in the global carbon cycle due to massive volcanism in the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province. It is hypothesized that this volcanism also likely delivered sulphur dioxide (SO2) to the atmosphere.