Search results for "functional trait"

Invasive and native populations of common ragweed exhibit strong tolerance to foliar damage.

2013

8 pages; International audience; Tolerance and resistance are defence strategies evolved by plants to cope with damage due to herbivores. The introduction of exotic species to a new biogeographical range may alter the plant herbivore interactions and induce selection pressures for new plant defence strategies with a modified resource allocation. To detect evolution in tolerance to herbivory in common ragweed, we compared 3 native (North America) and 3 introduced (France) populations, grown in a common garden environment. We explored the effect of leaf herbivory on plant vegetative and reproductive traits. Plants were defoliated by hand, simulating different degrees of insect grazing by remo…

Towards a Unified Functional Trait Framework for Parasites

2019

Trait-based research holds high potential to unveil ecological and evolutionary processes. Functional traits are fitness-related characteristics of individuals, which are measured at individual level and defined without using information external to the individual. Despite the usefulness of the functional approach to understand the performance of individuals in ecosystems, and parasitism being the most common life-history strategy on Earth, studies based on functional traits of parasites are still scarce. Since the choice of functional traits is a critical step for any study, we propose a core list of seven functional traits of metazoan parasites, related to three universal challenges faced…

Monitoring of alien aquatic plants in the inland waters of Sicily (Italy)

2020

Updated and reliable data on the presence and distribution of alien aquatic plant species in Sicily are lacking, and there is a need to fill this gap for a proper and efficient management of freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity. This paper reviews the available knowledge about alien aquatic vascular plants in the inland waters of Sicily (Italy). The aim is to provide an updated checklist, as a first step in the study of the impact of those plants on the native species and ecosystems of this Mediterranean island. The paper focuses on the strictly aquatic species (hydrophytes), excluding emergent macrophytes. Four species were listed, all of them free-floating and with American origin. Most…

Identification of weed community traits response to conservation agriculture

2013

International audience; Conservation agriculture is designed to deliver more sustainable cropping systems by preserving agricultural soils with tillage abandonment. However, knowledge on the impacts of Conservation agriculture adoption on weed infestation level and potential shifts in the composition of weed communities appears low and contradictory. We used a trait-based approach to investigate whether there are shifts in values of a set of traits within weed communities following the adoption of Direct Drilling with cover-crop (DD) which is one of the Conservation Agriculture practices. Weed surveys were conducted across a range of times since conversion to DD in 52 winter wheat fields lo…

Plant morphology: outdated or advanced discipline in modern plant sciences?

2018

Despite an increasing societal awareness and sensitivity about biological diversity and nature conservation as pivotal matters for human survival and well-being, plant systematics has gone through a steady decline in interest, and researches on these topics are often neglected. This particularly applies to plant morphology in its broad sense (i.e. including anatomy, histology, micro-morphology), which has increasingly become marginalized and considered less important than other scientific methods in plant biology. Notwithstanding, even in the current times of genomics (plus other “omics” topics) and functional ecology, when trait-based approaches are essential for studying and understanding…

Morphological traits predict host-tree specialization in wood-inhabiting fungal communities

2020

Tree species is one of the most important determinants of wood-inhabiting fungal community composition, yet its relationship with fungal reproductive and dispersal traits remains poorly understood. We studied fungal communities (total of 657 species) inhabiting broadleaved and coniferous dead wood (total of 192 logs) in 12 semi-natural boreal forests. We utilized a trait-based hierarchical joint species distribution model to examine how the relationship between dead wood quality and species occurrence correlates with reproductive and dispersal morphological traits. Broadleaved trees had higher species richness than conifers, due to discomycetoids and pyrenomycetoids specializing in them. Re…

Functional traits, mechanistic bioenergetics and microclimatic downscaling of marine ectotherms

2014

A multi-site study to classify semi-natural grassland types

2009

International audience; Calibration and validation of simulation models describing herbage growth or feed quality of seminatural grasslands is a complex task for agronomists without investing effort into botanical surveys. To facilitate such modelling efforts, a limited number of grassland types were identified using a functional classification of species. These grassland types were characterized by three descriptors required to model herbage growth or feed quality: the abundance-weighted mean leaf dry matter content across grass species, the relative abundance of grasses, and an estimate of species richness. We conducted a multi-site analysis over 749 grasslands from eight temperate region…

Functional traits of two co-occurring sea urchins across a barren/forest patch system

2013

Abstract Temperate rocky reefs may occur in two alternative states (coralline barrens and erect algal forests), whose formation and maintenance are often determined by sea urchin grazing. The two sea urchin species Paracentrotus lividus and Arbacia lixula are considered to play a similar ecological role despite their differing morphological traits and diets. The patchy mosaic areas of Ustica Island, Italy, offer an ideal environment in which to study differences in the performance of P. lividus and A. lixula in barren versus forest states. Results show that the two sea urchin species differ in diet, trophic position, grazing adaptation, movement ability and fitness in both barren and forest…

Highlighting the role of diversity in driving weed dynamics and weed-crop interactions

2017

EAGESTAD INRA; Weeds are responsible for crop losses and their management, mainly through herbicide applications, has led to resistances and environmental impacts. Integrated Weed Management encourages the use of “many little hammers” such as crop rotation, mechanical weeding, stale seedbed technique and delayed sowing … i.e. more complex and diversified cropping systems, in order to increase cropping system sustainability. However, research is still required to test the effectiveness of combinations of these alternative tactics in a wide range of agricultural contexts. Furthermore, the cropping system approach considers all these individual hammers, whose effects on agricultural weeds have…