Theoretical analyses for the evolution of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC) emission strategy.

Plants emit biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) as signaling molecules, playing a crucial role in inducing resistance against herbivores. Neighboring plants that eavesdrop on BVOC signals can also increase defenses against herbivores or alter growth patterns to respond to potential risks of herbivore damage. Despite the significance of BVOC emissions, the evolutionary rationales behind their release and the factors contributing to the diversity in such emissions remain poorly understood.

Links between leaf anatomy and leaf mass per area of herbaceous species across slope aspects in an eastern Tibetan subalpine meadow.

Leaf anatomy varies with abiotic factors and is an important trait for understanding plant adaptive responses to environmental conditions. Leaf mass per area (LMA) is a key morphological trait and is related to leaf performance, such as light-saturated photosynthetic rate per leaf mass, leaf mechanical strength, and leaf lifespan. LMA is the multiplicative product of leaf thickness (LT) and leaf density (LD), both of which vary with leaf anatomy.

Guard cell photosynthesis is crucial in abscisic acid-induced stomatal closure.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are ubiquitous signaling molecules involved in diverse physiological processes, including stomatal closure. Photosynthetic electron transport (PET) is the main source of ROS generation in plants, but whether it functions in guard cell signaling remains unclear. Here, we assessed whether PET functions in abscisic acid (ABA) signaling in guard cells.

UV bullseye contrast of flowers attracts hawkmoths but not swallowtail butterflies.

The color and patterns of animal-pollinated flowers are known to have effects on pollinator attraction. In this study, the relative importance of flower color and color contrast patterns on pollinator attraction was examined in two pollinator groups, swallowtail butterflies and hawkmoths using two species; butterfly-pollinated and hawkmoth-pollinated having reddish and yellowish flowers in human vision, respectively. Flowers of both species have UV bullseye patterns, composed of UV-absorbing centers and UV-reflecting peripheries, known to function as a typical nectar guide, but UV reflectance was significantly more intense in the peripheries of flowers than in those of flowers.

Effects of cyclic changes in population size on neutral genetic diversity.

Recurrent changes in population size are often observed in nature, influencing the efficiency of selection and consequently affecting organismal evolution. Thus, it is important to know whether such changes occurred in the past history of a focal population of evolutionary interests. Here, we focused on cyclic changes in population size and investigated the distributional properties of Tajima's and its power to distinguish a cyclic change model compared with the standard neutral model, changing the frequency and magnitude of the cyclic change.

Size advantage for male function and size-dependent sex allocation in , a wind-pollinated plant.

In wind-pollinated plants, male-biased sex allocation is often positively associated with plant size and height. However, effects of size (biomass or reproductive investment) and height were not separated in most previous studies. Here, using experimental populations of monoecious plants, we examined (1) how male and female reproductive investments (MRI and FRI) change with biomass and height, (2) how MRI and height affect male reproductive success (MRS) and pollen dispersal, and (3) how height affects seed production.