Multiple intrinsic and extrinsic drivers influence the quantity and quality components of seed dispersal effectiveness in the rare shrub Lindera subcoriacea.

Information about seed dispersal effectiveness (SDE) for plant species of conservation concern is rarely available to inform management strategies and actions. For Lindera subcoriacea (bog spicebush, Lauraceae), a rare endemic dioecious shrub of the southeastern United States, we examined the influence of two intrinsic and five extrinsic drivers on the number and proportion of seeds either dispersed, or predated pre- and post-dispersal. The number of seeds dispersed characterizes the quantitative component of SDE, while pre- and post-dispersal seed predation can affect the qualitative component of SDE.

Functional trait similarity predicts survival in rare plant reintroductions.

Rare species reintroductions are an increasingly common conservation strategy, but often result in poor survival of reintroduced individuals. Reintroduction sites are chosen primarily based on historical occupancy and/or abiotic properties of the site, with much less consideration given to properties of the larger biotic community. However, ecological niche theory suggests that the ability to coexist with other species is determined in part by the degree of functional similarity between species.

Better lucky than good: How savanna trees escape the fire trap in a variable world.

Fire controls tree cover in many savannas by suppressing saplings through repeated topkill and resprouting, causing a demographic bottleneck. Tree cover can increase dramatically if even a small fraction of saplings escape this fire trap, so modeling and management of savanna vegetation should account for occasional individuals that escape the fire trap because they are "better" (i.e.

Trait space of rare plants in a fire-dependent ecosystem.

The causes of species rarity are of critical concern because of the high extinction risk associated with rarity. Studies examining individual rare species have limited generality, whereas trait-based approaches offer a means to identify functional causes of rarity that can be applied to communities with disparate species pools. Differences in functional traits between rare and common species may be indicative of the functional causes of species rarity and may therefore be useful in crafting species conservation strategies.

Size-dependent enhancement of water relations during post-fire resprouting.

In resprouting species, fire-induced topkill causes a reduction in height and leaf area without a comparable reduction in the size of the root system, which should lead to an increase in the efficiency of water transport after fire. However, large plants undergo a greater relative reduction in size, compared with small plants, so we hypothesized that this enhancement in hydraulic efficiency would be greatest among large growth forms. In the ecotone between long-leaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.

Recent vicariance and the origin of the rare, edaphically specialized Sandhills lily, Lilium pyrophilum (Liliaceae): evidence from phylogenetic and coalescent analyses.

Establishing the phylogenetic and demographic history of rare plants improves our understanding of mechanisms that have led to their origin and can lead to valuable insights that inform conservation decisions. The Atlantic coastal plain of eastern North America harbours many rare and endemic species, yet their evolution is poorly understood. We investigate the rare Sandhills lily (Lilium pyrophilum), which is endemic to seepage slopes in a restricted area of the Atlantic coastal plain of eastern North America.

Evidence for range stasis during the latter Pleistocene for the Atlantic Coastal Plain endemic genus, Pyxidanthera Michaux.

The general phylogeographical paradigm for eastern North America (ENA) is that many plant and animal species retreated into southern refugia during the last glacial period, then expanded northward after the last glacial maximum (LGM). However, some taxa of the Gulf and Atlantic Coastal Plain (GACP) demonstrate complex yet recurrent distributional patterns that cannot be explained by this model. For example, eight co-occurring endemic plant taxa with ranges from New York to South Carolina exhibit a large disjunction separating northern and southern populations by >300 km.