Shining a Light on Patterns of Photoperiod Sensitivity in Germination and Flowering Across Latitudes, Ecosystems and Functional Traits.

In photoperiod sensitive plants, the timing of phenological events depends primarily on day length rather than temperature, precipitation or other environmental variables. This may make these photoperiod sensitive species less able to respond to climate change as their phenologies are more tightly controlled by day length conditions, which remain constant into the future, than by changing climatic conditions. We measured germination under three light treatments (short-day, long-day and equal light and dark) to quantify species' germination photoperiod sensitivity.

Measuring plant biomass remotely using drones in arid landscapes.

Measurement of variation in plant biomass is essential for answering many ecological and evolutionary questions. Quantitative estimates require plant destruction for laboratory analyses, while field studies use allometric approaches based on simple measurement of plant dimensions.We estimated the biomass of individual shrub-sized plants, using a low-cost unmanned aerial system (drone), enabling rapid data collection and non-destructive sampling.