Mother trees, altruistic fungi, and the perils of plant personification.

There are growing doubts about the true role of the common mycorrhizal networks (CMN or wood wide web) connecting the roots of trees in forests. We question the claims of a substantial carbon transfer from 'mother trees' to their offspring and nearby seedlings through the CMN. Recent reviews show that evidence for the 'mother tree concept' is inconclusive or absent.

How the living world evolved and where it's headed now.

The growth of life on Earth over more than 4 billion years has experienced five major extinction events, each followed by a period of rapid increase in species number. When organisms first invaded the land about 480 million years ago, another explosive proliferation of species followed. Our species, , appeared some 300 000 years ago, developed agriculture about 11 000 years ago and grew rapidly to some 7.

Agricultural intensification and climate change are rapidly decreasing insect biodiversity.

Major declines in insect biomass and diversity, reviewed here, have become obvious and well documented since the end of World War II. Here, we conclude that the spread and intensification of agriculture during the past half century is directly related to these losses. In addition, many areas, including tropical mountains, are suffering serious losses because of climate change as well.

The distribution of biodiversity richness in the tropics.

We compare the numbers of vascular plant species in the three major tropical areas. The Afrotropical Region (Africa south of the Sahara Desert plus Madagascar), roughly equal in size to the Latin American Region (Mexico southward), has only 56,451 recorded species (about 170 being added annually), as compared with 118,308 recorded species (about 750 being added annually) in Latin America. Southeast Asia, only a quarter the size of the other two tropical areas, has approximately 50,000 recorded species, with an average of 364 being added annually.

Vertebrates on the brink as indicators of biological annihilation and the sixth mass extinction.

The ongoing sixth mass species extinction is the result of the destruction of component populations leading to eventual extirpation of entire species. Populations and species extinctions have severe implications for society through the degradation of ecosystem services. Here we assess the extinction crisis from a different perspective.

Phylogenetic patterns suggest frequent multiple origins of secondary metabolites across the seed-plant 'tree of life'.

To evaluate the phylogenetic patterns of the distribution and evolution of plant secondary metabolites (PSMs), we selected 8 classes of PSMs and mapped them onto an updated phylogenetic tree including 437 families of seed plants. A significant phylogenetic signal was detected in 17 of the 18 tested seed-plant clades for at least 1 of the 8 PSM classes using the D statistic. The phylogenetic signal, nevertheless, indicated weak clustering of PSMs compared to a random distribution across all seed plants.

An integrated assessment of the vascular plant species of the Americas.

The cataloging of the vascular plants of the Americas has a centuries-long history, but it is only in recent decades that an overview of the entire flora has become possible. We present an integrated assessment of all known native species of vascular plants in the Americas. Twelve regional and national checklists, prepared over the past 25 years and including two large ongoing flora projects, were merged into a single list.

The Fate of the World's Plants.

A recent report assessing the world's plant species finds continuing progress in completing the taxonomic catalog. However, many undescribed species remain. The report concludes that, presently, 21% of known species risk extinction.

Complete Plastome Sequence of Ludwigia octovalvis (Onagraceae), a Globally Distributed Wetland Plant.

Here, we present the first plastome of Ludwigia octovalvis (Onagraceae, Myrtales) as well as the first plastome in the subfamily Ludwigioideae. This genome is notable for its contracted inverted repeat regions and an expanded small single-copy region compared to other species in the orders Myrtales and Geraniales.

The correct name for a section of Ludwigia L. (Onagraceae).

In 1953, Hara provided new combinations for many sectional and species names when he combined Jussiaea L. with Ludwigia L., and at the time, Ludwigiasect.

GM crops, the environment and sustainable food production.

Today, over 7.1 billion people rely on the earth's resources for sustenance, and nearly a billion people are malnourished, their minds and bodies unable to develop properly. Globally, population is expected to rise to more than 9 billion by 2050.

Rethinking primate origins again.

In 1974, Cartmill introduced the theory that the earliest primate adaptations were related to their being visually oriented predators active on slender branches. Given more recent data on primate-like marsupials, nocturnal prosimians, and early fossil primates, and the context in which these primates first appeared, this theory has been modified. We hypothesize that our earliest primate relatives were likely exploiting the products of co-evolving angiosperms, along with insects attracted to fruits and flowers, in the slender supports of the terminal branch milieu.

Embryology of the Irvingiaceae, a family with uncertain relationships among the Malpighiales.

The Irvingiaceae, one of 40 families of the Malpighiales, comprise a small woody family of 10 species in three genera distributed in Old World tropics. Its relationships with other families are unclear, although recent molecular analyses suggest affinities with Linaceae, Caryocaraceae, Erythroxylaceae, and Rhizophoraceae. To gain insight into family relationships, we investigated 63 embryological characters of two previously unstudied African species, Irvingia gabonensis and I.

Does the use of transgenic plants diminish or promote biodiversity?

The protection of biodiversity and of ecosystem services ought to be a top priority, taken into consideration in the course of all human activities, because we depend on it fully now and for the future. In this context, we note that the ecological problems related to the cultivation of GE crops fail to differ in any fundamental way from the ecological problems associated with agriculture in general, except that they usually involve the application of much lower quantities of chemicals and thus tend to leave the environments in and adjacent to where they are grown in better condition than do the conventional ones. Higher productivity on cultivated lands, which is one outcome of growing GE crops, protects biodiversity by sparing lands not intensively cultivated, whereas relatively non-productive agriculture practised is highly destructive to biodiversity, since it consumes more land in an often destructive way, even though more biodiversity may be preserved among the crops themselves than in industrialized, large fields, especially if hedgerows and woodlands are not encouraged in near proximity.