Southern Africa's Great Escarpment as an amphitheater of climate-driven diversification and a buffer against future climate change in bats.

Hosting 1460 plant and 126 vertebrate endemic species, the Great Escarpment (hereafter, Escarpment) forms a semi-circular "amphitheater" of mountains girdling southern Africa from arid west to temperate east. Since arid and temperate biota are usually studied separately, earlier studies overlooked the biogeographical importance of the Escarpment as a whole. Bats disperse more widely than other mammalian taxa, with related species and intraspecific lineages occupying both arid and temperate highlands of the Escarpment, providing an excellent model to address this knowledge gap.

Deep learning to extract the meteorological by-catch of wildlife cameras.

Microclimate-proximal climatic variation at scales of metres and minutes-can exacerbate or mitigate the impacts of climate change on biodiversity. However, most microclimate studies are temperature centric, and do not consider meteorological factors such as sunshine, hail and snow. Meanwhile, remote cameras have become a primary tool to monitor wild plants and animals, even at micro-scales, and deep learning tools rapidly convert images into ecological data.

Reproductive Ecology of the Invasive Alien Shrub in the Grassland Biome, South Africa.

Knowledge on reproductive traits of problematic invasive alien plants, such as the woody invasive shrub of temperate Chinese origin, can help better manage invasive species. To determine factors contributing to its invasion, we investigated floral visitors and pollen loads, self-compatibility, seed set, seed rain, soil seed banks, and seed longevity in the soil. Generalist insects were recorded visiting flowers and all carried pollen loads of high purity (>70%).

New records and key to (Pooideae, Poaceae) from the Flora of Southern Africa region and notes on taxa including a diclinous breeding system in .

Four species of L. are newly reported for sub-Saharan Africa and southern Africa, L., Azn.

(Poaceae): A common new species in the complex from the Drakensberg Mountain Centre of Floristic Endemism, southern Africa, with key and notes on taxa in the complex including the overlooked .

We present taxonomic notes on the complex from southern Africa that includes description and illustration of the new species from the Drakensberg Mountain Centre of Floristic Endemism of South Africa and Lesotho. can be differentiated from s.l.

Mountains of the Mist: A first plant checklist for the Bvumba Mountains, Manica Highlands (Zimbabwe-Mozambique).

The first comprehensive plant checklist for the Bvumba massif, situated in the Manica Highlands along the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border, is presented. Although covering only 276 km, the flora is rich with 1250 taxa (1127 native taxa and 123 naturalised introductions). There is a high proportion of Orchidaceae and Pteridophyta, with both groups showing a higher richness than for adjacent montane areas, which may be due to the massif's relatively high moisture levels as a result of frequent cloud cover.

The rediscovery of the Great Winterberg endemic Lotononis harveyi B.-E.van Wyk after 147 years, and notes on the poorly known Amathole endemic Macowania revoluta Oliv. (southern Great Escarpment, South Africa).

South Africa's 800 km-long southern Great Escarpment hosts numerous endemic plant species only known from their type specimens or from very few records. This is a legacy of a 100-150 year lag between the pioneer work of 19(th) century botanists and repeat fieldwork in the 21(st) century. As a result, population and ecological data are lacking for many local endemic species.

A rapid multi-disciplinary biodiversity assessment of the Kamdebooberge (Sneeuberg, Eastern Cape, South Africa): implications for conservation.

Unlabelled: Botanical work since 2008 on the Sleeping Giant section of the Kamdebooberge (Sneeuberg mountain complex, Eastern Cape, South Africa) has indicated that these mountains may be of significant conservation value. Accordingly, a precursory, rapid multi-disciplinary biodiversity assessment was undertaken in January 2011, focusing on plants, tetrapod vertebrates and leafhoppers. The botanical results confirm the Kamdebooberge as being of high botanical conservation value, hosting three strict endemics, healthy populations of five other Sneeuberg endemics, and fynbos communities comprising species not found elsewhere in the Sneeuberg.