Showing papers in "Basic and Applied Ecology in 2006"

TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that the degree of association largely depends on the balance of negative and positive effects between these contrasting plant life-forms, ranging from interference to facilitation.

TL;DR: It is underline that access to carbohydrate-rich food can be indispensable to parasitoid fecundity and stress the importance of providing suitable nectar sources as an integral part of biological control programs.

TL;DR: The results suggest that the importance of landscape context for the species richness of flower visiting insects depends upon the quality of the habitat patches.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that physical access to nectaries alone does not determine the potential of flowers as a food source, and more effective conservation biocontrol may be achieved by the provision of selective floral resources.

TL;DR: It is concluded that potentially large between-provenance differences in germination traits need to be considered in ecological restoration projects, particularly in non-permanent systems where they may determine vegetation development.

TL;DR: There was considerable temporal variation in the mud mass attached to the vehicles and therefore also the size and composition of the vehicle-borne flora varied during the year, and a larger resemblance with the flora of the zone immediately adjacent to the carriageway was found.

TL;DR: In this paper, Carabids were collected by pitfall traps over two full activity periods in lowland oak forest patches in and near the city of Debrecen, Eastern Hungary.

TL;DR: Tate-season trends of NSC in this group of woody plant species revealed no depletion of carbon reserves near the tree Limit, suggesting that sink limitation predominates Woody plant Life across this treeline ecotone community.

TL;DR: Variations in nitrogen (N) and P concentrations were temporally and spatially scale-dependent, which underlines the importance of scale for understanding plant nutrient dynamics in sub-arctic and alpine systems, as well for plant–animal interactions.

TL;DR: Differences in species composition and rates of seedling recruitment among secondary and mature forest may arise from ecophysiological differences among species; however, the combined effect of seed availability and dispersal differences may have a larger influence.

TL;DR: It is concluded that restoration measures in river floodplains should also provide suitable non-inundated overwintering sites for immigrating species, and submersion tolerant plant- and leafhoppers as well as spiders occurred in high densities in sites affected by long-lasting winter floods.

TL;DR: A lab-experiment is introduced in which detachment rates of diaspores from mechanically shaken animal coats are measured using a standardized protocol and compared with detachment rates measured under natural conditions, which shows that a binary classification of species dispersed in animal hair vs. species not dispersed is artificial.

TL;DR: In this article, the role of two possible water sources (inundation, ground water) for the water supply to the perennial plant species Alhagi sparsifolia, Calligonum caput-medusae, Populus euphratica and Tamarix ramosissima growing in the transition zone between a river oasis and the open desert at the southern fringe of the Taklamakan desert (Xinjiang province, NW China).

TL;DR: It is concluded that possible effects of Bt maize on European butterflies and moths must be evaluated more rigorously before BT maize should be cultivated over large areas.

TL;DR: In laboratory experiments, two species of common grass aphids were tested, in a population experiment and individually, for the effects of the endophyte that forms symbiotic associations with perennial ryegrass Lolium perenne and showed reduced adult life span and fecundity when feeding on infected plants.

TL;DR: Flexible mowing regimes that vary among years are probably most useful to ensure seedling recruitment of a broad variety of flood-meadow species.

TL;DR: It is concluded that seeds from different habitats and locations are transported together during heavy flooding and that these floodings might thus expand the usual dispersal ranges of plant species.

TL;DR: Accumulation of seeds of wetness indicators near rubbing trees demonstrates directed dispersal of plant species inhabiting wet places among remote wallows.

TL;DR: In this paper, the diversity and conservation value of bird assemblages breeding in 200 remnants of Holm oak Quercus ilex woodlands and 82 mature (>50-year-old) pine plantations in central Spain, a Mediterranean region mostly devoted to arable farming were analyzed.

TL;DR: It is concluded that L. serriola has broadened its ecological amplitude and discusses four mutually non-exclusive explanations for the recent invasiveness of L.serriola: effects of a changed environment: global warming and ruderalisation, metapopulation dynamics and increased diaspore pressure, microevolution and genetic reinforcement due to hybridisation with conspecific (crop) species.

TL;DR: The results provide only a partial support for the hypothesis that pure forest stands are more susceptible to insect herbivores and demonstrate that the benefits of mixed forests in terms of reduced herbivory are not as straightforward as commonly thought.

TL;DR: It is likely that in floodplain grasslands with low to intermediate productivity, phosphate is the most important factor influencing plant competition and plant species diversity, which is supported by the present-day distribution of C. dubium floodplain meadows of the river Elbe.

TL;DR: The regeneration capacity of mat-forming lichens will hence be reduced in dense mats and when reindeer grazing has preferentially removed the photobiont-rich upper half of the thallus.

TL;DR: The joint effects of multiple herbivores on their shared host plant have received increasing interest recently and are likely to have an impact on population dynamics of their host plants.

TL;DR: A conceptual model is proposed that can be used to predict the effect of grazing on shrub spatial pattern in water-limited ecosystems where shrubs grow within a matrix of annual vegetation.

TL;DR: High recruitment rates of target species in the test area, compared with other grassland areas of a more intensive land use history, emphasize the importance of a big species pool and the spatial interconnection of species-rich (source-) and species-deficient (sink-) habitats.

TL;DR: The growth reduction caused by reproduction is so strong that future ecological and physiological lichen studies should consider the reproductive stage or standardize the amount of asexual diaspores in future experiments.

TL;DR: Sod-cutting had a pronounced effect on seedling emergence: viable seeds dispersed by dung had a higher probability of successful establishment when the dung was deposited in large gaps, indicating that an increase of safe sites associated with disturbance strengthens the effects of seed dispersal and gap creation bydung deposition.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the possibilities and limitations to quantify the chemical composition of different plant parts and ecological properties with the help of near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) and concluded that NIRS represents a suitable and cost-effective tool to measure primary and groups of secondary components of plant material.

TL;DR: The results of the isotope-mixing model clearly showed that C. acerbiphilus larvae selectively assimilated phytoplankton and benthic diatoms as fresh deposits from bulk sediments, and assimilatedphytopLankton more readily than benthal diatom.