461 results match your criteria: "Department of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany University of Zürich Zürich Switzerland.[Affiliation]"

Global warming changes flowering times of many plant species, with potential impacts on frost damage and their synchronization with pollinator activity. These effects can have severe impacts on plant fitness, yet we know little about how frequently they occur and the extent of damage they cause. We addressed this topic in a thermophilic orchid with a highly specific pollination mechanism, the Small Spider Orchid, RchB, in six populations in Northern Switzerland.

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Novel species of fungi described in this study include those from various countries as follows: , from accumulated snow sediment sample. , on leaf spots of . , on submerged decaying wood in sea water, on , as endophyte from healthy leaves of .

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Geographic patterns and climatic drivers of the mean genus age of liverworts in North America.

Plant Divers

November 2024

Department of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, University of Zurich, Zurich 8008, Switzerland.

Phylogenetic niche conservatism posits that species tend to retain ancestral ecological traits and distributions, which has been broadly tested for lineages originating in tropical climates but has been rarely tested for lineages that originated and diversified in temperate climates. Liverworts are thought to originate in temperate climates. Mean lineage age reflects evolutionary history of biological communities.

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The geographic mosaic of coevolution predicts reciprocal selection, the first step in coevolution, to vary with changing biotic and abiotic environmental conditions. Studying how temperature affects reciprocal selection is essential to connect effects of global warming on the microevolutionary patterns of coevolution to the ecological processes underlying them. In this study, we investigated whether temperature influenced reciprocal selection between a plant (Brassica rapa) and its pollinating butterfly herbivore (Pieris rapae).

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Background And Aims: The cosmopolitan Botrychium lunaria group belong to the most species rich genus of the family Ophioglossaceae and was considered to consist of two species until molecular studies in North America and northern Europe led to the recognition of multiple new taxa. Recently, additional genetic lineages were found scattered in Europe, emphasizing our poor understanding of the global diversity of the B. lunaria group, while the processes involved in the diversification of the group remain unexplored.

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Land use change threatens global biodiversity and compromises ecosystem functions, including pollination and food production. Reduced taxonomic α-diversity is often reported under land use change, yet the impacts could be different at larger spatial scales (i.e.

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Article Synopsis
  • Plant communities consist of species with varying functional traits and evolutionary backgrounds, leading to the expectation that functional diversity increases with phylogenetic diversity.* -
  • Contrary to this expectation, a study of over 1.7 million vegetation plots showed that functional and phylogenetic diversity are weakly and negatively correlated, suggesting they operate independently.* -
  • Phylogenetic diversity is more pronounced in forests and reflects recent climate, while functional diversity is influenced by both past and recent climate, highlighting the need to assess both types of diversity for ecosystem studies and conservation strategies.*
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Kurdish ethnomedicine in the context of historic migration.

J Ethnopharmacol

January 2025

Department for Systematic and Evolutionary Botany and Botanical Garden, University of Zurich, Zollikerstrasse 107, 8008, Zurich, Switzerland. Electronic address:

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Community displacement and cultural integration influence the use of plants for medicine. This study enhances our understanding of how communities adapt their medical practices in response to environmental changes.

Aim Of The Study: We investigate how Kurds in SE Iran (Balochi Kurds), displaced between the 16th and 18th centuries from their homeland in NW Iran, retained and adapted their medicinal knowledge.

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Premise: This paper provides an overview of the wood anatomy of the dogbane family (Apocynaceae), reconstructs wood anatomical trait evolution, and links this evolution with woody growth-form transitions and floral and seed trait innovations across the family.

Methods: Over 200 published wood anatomical descriptions were revised, and original light microscopic sections were made and described for another 50 species. Changes in wood anatomical characters through time were visualized with ancestral state reconstructions.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Analysis of data from over 1 million forest plots and thousands of tree species shows that wood density varies significantly by latitude, being up to 30% denser in tropical forests compared to boreal forests, and is influenced mainly by temperature and soil moisture.
  • * The research also finds that disturbances like human activity and fire alter wood density at local levels, affecting forest carbon stock estimates by up to 21%, emphasizing the importance of understanding environmental impacts on forest ecosystems.
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The Relationship Between Maturation Size and Maximum Tree Size From Tropical to Boreal Climates.

Ecol Lett

September 2024

Universite Grenoble Alpes, Institut National de Recherche Pour Agriculture, Alimentation et Environnement (INRAE), Laboratoire EcoSystemes et Societes En Montagne (LESSEM), Grenoble, France.

Article Synopsis
  • - The study examines the relationship between tree maturation size and reproduction, finding that larger tree species tend to start reproducing at a smaller size than expected, challenging previous assumptions.
  • - Researchers analyzed seed production data from 486 tree species across different climates, revealing that maturation size increases with maximum size but not in a straightforward manner.
  • - The results indicate that this trend is particularly pronounced in colder climates, highlighting the importance of understanding maturation size to better predict how forests will respond to climate change and disturbances.
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Background And Aims: Poikilohydry describes the inability of plants to internally regulate their water content (hydroregulation), whereas desiccation tolerance (DT) refers to the ability to restore normal metabolic functions upon rehydration. The failure to clearly separate these two adaptations has impeded a comprehensive understanding of their unique evolutionary and ecological drivers. Unlike bryophytes and angiosperms, these adaptations in ferns are sometimes uncorrelated, offering a unique opportunity to navigate their intricate interplay.

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Genetic diversity is heterogeneously distributed among populations of the same species, due to the joint effects of multiple demographic processes, including range contractions and expansions, and mating systems shifts. Here, we ask how both processes shape genomic diversity in space and time in the classical Primula vulgaris model. This perennial herb originated in the Caucasus region and was hypothesized to have expanded westward following glacial retreat in the Quaternary.

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The power of independent generations in plants.

New Phytol

January 2025

Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Purdue Center for Plant Biology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA.

This article is a Commentary on Blake‐Mahmud . (2025), : 885–898.

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Global freshwater distribution of Telonemia protists.

ISME J

January 2024

Department of Aquatic Microbial Ecology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, 37005, České Budějovice, Czech Republic.

Article Synopsis
  • Telonemia are ancient marine protists with established evolutionary links to the SAR supergroup, but their ecological roles and distribution in freshwater environments remain under-researched.
  • A global study of over a thousand freshwater metagenomes and 407 samples from lakes revealed a wide distribution of Telonemia, though no new major clades were identified, indicating their diversity is well-represented in current surveys.
  • Findings suggest Telonemia prefer colder, deeper areas of lakes in the Northern Hemisphere, where they can make up 10%-20% of the heterotrophic flagellate population, highlighting their significance in freshwater food webs.
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Unravelling large-scale patterns and drivers of biodiversity in dry rivers.

Nat Commun

August 2024

Water Research Institute, National Research Council (IRSA-CNR), Area della Ricerca RM1, via Salaria km 29.300, Monterotondo, Rome, Italy.

More than half of the world's rivers dry up periodically, but our understanding of the biological communities in dry riverbeds remains limited. Specifically, the roles of dispersal, environmental filtering and biotic interactions in driving biodiversity in dry rivers are poorly understood. Here, we conduct a large-scale coordinated survey of patterns and drivers of biodiversity in dry riverbeds.

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Genome evolution under speciation is poorly understood in nonmodel and nonvascular plants, such as bryophytes-the largest group of nonvascular land plants. Their genomes are structurally different from angiosperms and likely subjected to stronger linked selection pressure, which may have profound consequences on genome evolution in diversifying lineages, even more so when their genome architecture is conserved. We use the highly diverse, rapidly radiated group of peatmosses () to characterize the processes affecting genome diversification in bryophytes.

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Background: The demand for natural product-based treatment options for livestock is increasing by animals' owners, veterinarians and policy makers. But at the same time, the traditional knowledge about it is at risk of falling into oblivion in Europe. The present study recorded this knowledge for the linguistically and geographically interesting Swiss canton of Valais.

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Article Synopsis
  • Root exudates play a crucial role in influencing the plant's root microbiome through specialized metabolites, particularly benzoxazinoids in maize.
  • Researchers discovered that certain bacteria in the maize rhizosphere can metabolize these compounds, specifically MBOA (6-methoxybenzoxazolin-2(3H)-one), into AMPO (2-amino-7-methoxy-phenoxazin-3-one).
  • A gene cluster containing bxdA, which encodes a key enzyme for this conversion, was identified, highlighting how specific bacteria able to metabolize benzoxazinoids can thrive and influence the soil environment around maize roots.
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Water level regime variation is a crucial driver for taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity in seasonally flooded tropical forests.

Sci Total Environ

November 2024

Department of Biology, Graduate Program in Applied Botany, Federal University of Lavras, Lavras, MG 37200-000, Brazil; Phytogeography and Evolutionary Ecology Laboratory, Department of Forest Sciences, Federal University of Lavras, Lavras, MG 37200-000, Brazil.

Floodplains contribute significantly to terrestrial ecosystem service provision but are also among the most vulnerable and degraded ecosystems worldwide. Heterogeneity in floodplain properties arises from variations in river-specific flood regimes, watershed characteristics, and valley morphology, influencing seasonally flooded forests' taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity. This study addresses persisting knowledge gaps in floodplain ecology, focusing on the seasonally dry tropics.

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Article Synopsis
  • Pollinator-driven evolution of floral traits significantly influences the speciation and diversification of angiosperms, with Ophrys orchids employing sexual deception by mimicking female insects to attract male pollinators.
  • The study presents a comprehensive 5.2 Gb genome sequence of Ophrys sphegodes, revealing key genetic features such as transposable element expansion and gene duplication that aid in chemical mimicry and reproductive isolation.
  • A notably differentiated genomic region on chromosome 2 is linked to pollinator-mediated evolution, indicating that this genome can help explore the genetics behind repeated sexual deception and adaptations in pollinators.
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Article Synopsis
  • Logged and disturbed forests, often seen as degraded, actually harbor significant biodiversity and should not be dismissed in conservation efforts.
  • A study in Sabah, Malaysia examined the effects of logging intensity on 1,681 species, revealing two important conservation thresholds.
  • Lightly logged forests (less than 29% biomass removed) can recover well, while heavily degraded forests (over 68% biomass removed) may need more intensive recovery efforts, highlighting the varying conservation values of logged forests.
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Fungi are among the most diverse and ecologically important kingdoms in life. However, the distributional ranges of fungi remain largely unknown as do the ecological mechanisms that shape their distributions. To provide an integrated view of the spatial and seasonal dynamics of fungi, we implemented a globally distributed standardized aerial sampling of fungal spores.

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Research on supergenes, non-recombining genomic regions housing tightly linked genes that control complex phenotypes, has recently gained prominence in genomics. Heterostyly, a floral heteromorphism promoting outcrossing in several angiosperm families, is controlled by the S-locus supergene. The S-locus has been studied primarily in closely related Primula species and, more recently, in other groups that independently evolved heterostyly.

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