Co-occurring orchid species associated with different low-abundance mycorrhizal fungi from the soil in a high-diversity conservation area in Denmark.

Plant-fungal interactions are ubiquitous across ecosystems and contribute significantly to plant ecology and evolution. All orchids form obligate symbiotic relationships with specific fungi for germination and early growth, and the distribution of terrestrial orchid species has been linked to occurrence and abundance of specific orchid mycorrhizal fungi (OMF) in the soil. The availability of OMF can therefore be a habitat requirement that is relevant to consider when establishing management and conservation strategies for threatened orchid species, but knowledge on the spatial distribution of OMF in soil is limited.

The Carbon Sink Potential of Southern China After Two Decades of Afforestation.

Afforestation and land use changes that sequester carbon from the atmosphere in the form of woody biomass have turned southern China into one of the largest carbon sinks globally, which contributes to mitigating climate change. However, forest growth saturation and available land that can be forested limit the longevity of this carbon sink, and while a plethora of studies have quantified vegetation changes over the last decades, the remaining carbon sink potential of this area is currently unknown. Here, we train a model with multiple predictors characterizing the heterogeneous landscapes of southern China and predict the biomass carbon carrying capacity of the region for 2002-2017.

Estimating herbaceous aboveground biomass in Sahelian rangelands using Structure from Motion data collected on the ground and by UAV.

Herbaceous aboveground biomass (HAB) is a key indicator of grassland vegetation and indirect estimation tools, such as remote sensing imagery, increase the potential for covering larger areas in a timely and cost-efficient way. Structure from Motion (SfM) is an image analysis process that can create a variety of 3D spatial models as well as 2D orthomosaics from a set of images. Computed from Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and ground camera measurements, the SfM potential to estimate the herbaceous aboveground biomass in Sahelian rangelands was tested in this study.

Leaf phenology of thirteen African origins of baobab ( (L.)) as influenced by daylength and water availability.

Water availability is often described as one of the main drivers of phenology of tropical dry forests but experimental studies to identify the cues triggering phenological changes are few. In a greenhouse trial, we exposed seedlings of thirteen origins, seven from West and six from East Africa, respectively, of L.(baobab) to a well-watered control treatment and a water withholding treatment in combination with exposure to three different daylengths (11.