American Journal of Botany最新文献

{"title":"Establishment patterns of saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea) at the microsite scale help explain saguaro regeneration and distributions in heterogenous, regional habitats","authors":"Peter B. Breslin,&nbsp;Charlotte Brown,&nbsp;Alberto Búrquez,&nbsp;Frank W. Reichenbacher,&nbsp;Susana Rodriguez-Buritica,&nbsp;D. Lawrence Venable,&nbsp;Deborah E. Goldberg","doi":"10.1002/ajb2.70053","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ajb2.70053","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Premise</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Establishment of long-lived perennial plants is a pivotal event that often leads to reproductive maturity. The population dynamics of the giant saguaro cactus (<i>Carnegiea gigantea</i>) have been investigated over large spatial areas, but establishment patterns have not been studied at the microsite (1 m) scale. Recent encroachment of non-native buffelgrass (<i>Cenchrus ciliaris</i>) has introduced an additional layer of complexity to our site at the Desert Lab on Tumamoc Hill in Tucson, Arizona, United States, with uncertain impact on saguaro establishment. We hypothesized that both biotic and abiotic microsite characteristics are correlated with saguaro establishment and that these correlations help explain saguaro distributions over larger spatial areas.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Methods</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>We investigated microsite characteristics correlated with saguaro establishment, the degree and direction of those correlations, and microsite effects on growth rate and saguaro abundance using 40 years of repeat survey data from saguaro plots at the Desert Lab.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Results</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Saguaros established in microsites with higher native vegetation cover, intermediate rock cover, at more level sites, or sites closer to the north–south axis. Establishment was nearly zero in areas of high buffelgrass cover. The relative growth rate of young saguaros was determined in part by complex interactions of native vegetation cover with eastness and elevation. Abundance was positively affected by native vegetation cover and negatively by buffelgrass cover.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Conclusions</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Microsite characteristics help explain patterns in saguaro regeneration. Our results suggest that microsite characteristics be considered in future studies of the saguaro. Our findings will be useful for conservation, restoration, and management of saguaro populations.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":7691,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Botany","volume":"112 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ajb2.70053","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144172476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Moisture loss rate drives the species-specific sensitivity of shoot flammability to water status.","authors":"Azaj Mahmud, Nursema Aktepe, Dylan W Schwilk","doi":"10.1002/ajb2.70052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.70052","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Premise: </strong>The importance of live fuel moisture content (LFMC), a critical determinant of plant flammability, to crown-fire behavior is subject to debate; physiological mechanisms underlying LFMC dynamics need to be incorporated into fire behavior models to better understand wildfire and vegetation-fire feedback. Here we aimed to determine the relationships among water potential, LFMC, and flammability, and how ecophysiological traits related to LFMC dynamics influence the relationship between plant water status (measured as water potential and LFMC) and flammability across nine native shrubs in Texas.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We assessed ignitability and heat release on excised shoots across a wide range of water potential and measured leaf and shoot ecophysiological traits to answer two questions: (1) What are the relationships between water potential, LFMC, and flammability, and do they vary across species? (2) If the relationship between water status and flammability varies across species, which plant traits predict the strength of this relationship?</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>LFMC covaried with water potential, but the shape of this relationship varied across species. The effect of water status on ignitability and heat release varied significantly across species, and the shoot moisture loss rate was lower in species in which ignitability and heat release was sensitive to water status.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This study suggests that the LFMC-flammability relationship across species depends on plant traits that influence water loss during fire weather conditions, and incorporating plant traits shaping LFMC dynamics into fire behavior models will improve our understanding of drought-vegetation-fire feedback.</p>","PeriodicalId":7691,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Botany","volume":" ","pages":"e70052"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144135887","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Phylogenetic relationships and the identification of allopolyploidy in circumpolar Silene sect. Physolychnis","authors":"Anne-Sophie Quatela,&nbsp;Patrik Cangren,&nbsp;Paola de Lima Ferreira,&nbsp;Yannick Woudstra,&nbsp;Andreas Zsoldos-Skahjem,&nbsp;Christine D. Bacon,&nbsp;Hugo J. de Boer,&nbsp;Bengt Oxelman","doi":"10.1002/ajb2.70051","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ajb2.70051","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Premise</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Species complexes are groups of closely related species with ambiguous delimitation, often composed of recently diverged lineages. Polyploidization and uniparental reproduction (i.e., selfing and apomixis) can play important roles in the origin of species complexes. These complexes pose challenges for species-based scientific questions, such as the estimation of species richness or conservation prioritization.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Methods</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>We determined the potential of resolving taxonomically complex groups using target enrichment in the circumpolar <i>Silene uralensis</i> complex (Caryophyllaceae). We proposed a metric using genetic distances between phased alleles to distinguish diploids from allopolyploids.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Results</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Our results identified geographic structure of populations, with the northern American and Greenlandic samples having a common ancestor. We found little phylogenetic support for the most recent taxonomic treatment of the <i>Silene uralensis</i> complex.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Conclusions</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>The study highlights the use of target enrichment in testing taxonomic hypotheses in diploids and the challenges of studying recently diverged lineages.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":7691,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Botany","volume":"112 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ajb2.70051","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144126612","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Stomatal distribution and post-fire recovery: Intra- and interspecific variation in plants of the pyrogenic Florida scrub.","authors":"Genevieve Triplett, Aaron S David","doi":"10.1002/ajb2.70050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.70050","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Premise: </strong>Amphistomy, the presence of stomata on both leaf surfaces, can increase photosynthesis yet is uncommon across vascular plants. The relative infrequency of amphistomy is often attributed to high costs, such as transpirational water loss. The Florida scrub-a hot, dry, shrub-dominated habitat-historically has experienced frequent fire, yet decades of anthropogenic suppression coupled with the reintroduction of prescribed burns has led to varied fire regimes. In this study, we investigated the links between amphistomy and fire with regard to the presence of the trait across species in this pyrogenic habitat and within-species variation before and after experimental fire and across a time-since-fire gradient (0.25-50 years).</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We surveyed the presence of amphistomy for 116 plant species across scrub habitats and experimentally investigated intraspecific variation in stomatal traits for two amphistomatous, post-fire resprouting species of palmetto, Serenoa repens and Sabal etonia (Arecaceae).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Amphistomy was present in 62.9% of all surveyed species and 85.7% of post-fire obligate reseeders, suggesting amphistomy may be particularly beneficial in this group and broadly in the Florida scrub conditions. The stomatal ratio (upper/total stomatal density) was generally stable within and across individuals of both species after fire. Stomatal density decreased following fire in S. etonia, with both species experiencing high variation in the post-fire years.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Amphistomy is common in the Florida scrub and relatively stable within species in response to fire, while stomatal density responds plastically during post-fire recovery.</p>","PeriodicalId":7691,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Botany","volume":" ","pages":"e70050"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144126613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mast years increase wind pollination and reduce seed predation in sugar maple (Acer saccharum)","authors":"Elizabeth E. Crone,&nbsp;Joshua M. Rapp","doi":"10.1002/ajb2.70046","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ajb2.70046","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Premise</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>In general, mast seeding (intermittent and synchronous seed production) increases plant fitness through economies of scale in which reproduction is more successful in high-seed years. These benefits have been most studied in wind-pollinated trees. Increased pollination success in mast years has been considered more important for wind- than animal-pollinated species, although this assumption is rarely explicitly tested.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Methods</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>In this study, we documented patterns of reproduction in <i>Acer saccharum</i> in central Massachusetts, United States over 15 years. We used pollinator exclusion experiments conducted over 6 years to test whether high-flowering and high-seed years lead to more successful wind pollination, more successful insect pollination, and lower predispersal seed predation. <i>Acer saccharum</i> is both insect- and wind-pollinated, allowing us to compare the strength of these two benefits.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Results</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>At our study site, <i>A. saccharum</i> was strongly alternate-bearing, meaning that trees alternated synchronously between high-flowering, high-seed years and low-flowering, low-seed years. Wind pollination was higher and predispersal seed predation lower in mast years, but insect pollination was similar in all years.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Conclusions</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>We showed geographic variation in patterns of <i>A. saccharum</i> seed production in comparison to past research. We also showed that synchronous flowering increases wind pollination more than insect pollination and that it decreases seed predation. <i>Acer saccharum</i> is dichogamous; protogynous trees were more likely to flower in mast years, and protandrous trees experienced larger benefits from wind-pollination in mast years. These results highlight masting trees as interesting study systems for future research on sex allocation.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":7691,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Botany","volume":"112 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ajb2.70046","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144126611","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Osmoxylon-like fossils from early Eocene South America: West Gondwana–Malesia connections in Araliaceae","authors":"Peter Wilf","doi":"10.1002/ajb2.70045","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ajb2.70045","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Premise</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Araliaceae comprise a moderately diverse, predominantly tropical angiosperm family with a limited fossil record. Gondwanan history of Araliaceae is hypothesized in the literature, but no fossils have previously been reported from the former supercontinent.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Methods</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>I describe large (to macrophyll size), palmately compound-lobed leaf fossils and an isolated umbellate infructescence from the early Eocene (52 Ma), late-Gondwanan paleorainforest flora at Laguna del Hunco in Argentine Patagonia.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Results</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>The leaf fossils are assigned to <i>Caffapanax canessae</i> gen. et sp. nov. (Araliaceae). Comparable living species belong to five genera that are primarily distributed from Malesia to South China. The most similar genus is <i>Osmoxylon</i>, which is centered in east Malesia and includes numerous threatened species. The infructescence is assigned to <i>Davidsaralia christophae</i> gen. et sp. nov. (Araliaceae) and is also comparable to <i>Osmoxylon</i>.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Conclusions</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>The <i>Caffapanax</i> leaves and <i>Davidsaralia</i> infructescence, potentially representing the same source taxon, are the oldest araliaceous macrofossils and provide direct evidence of Gondwanan history in the family. The new fossils and their large leaves enrich the well-established biogeographic and climatic affinities of the fossil assemblage with imperiled Indo-Pacific, everwet tropical rainforests. The fossils most likely represent shrubs or small trees, adding to the rich record of understory vegetation recovered from Laguna del Hunco.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":7691,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Botany","volume":"112 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ajb2.70045","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144092328","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From plant traits to fire behavior: Scaling issues in flammability studies.","authors":"Dylan W Schwilk, Md Azharul Alam, Nathan Gill, Brad R Murray, Rachael H Nolan, Stefania Ondei, George L W Perry, Alistair M S Smith, David M J S Bowman, Alessandra Fidelis, Pedro Jaureguiberry, Imma Oliveras Menor, Bruno H P Rosado, Helena Roland, Marta Yebra, Stephanie G Yelenik, Timothy J Curran","doi":"10.1002/ajb2.70040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.70040","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Despite fire being one of the oldest and most important ecological disturbance processes on Earth, many aspects of fire-vegetation feedbacks are poorly understood, limiting their accurate representation in predictive models. Translating plant flammability traits to fire behavior and fire effects on ecosystems has proven a challenge with different disciplines approaching the problem at widely different scales. One approach has been a top-down assessment of ecosystem-level effects of vegetation structural characteristics and plant physiology on fuel properties such as fuel moisture. This approach has had some success, but is often forced to collapse species-specific variation into a small number of functional types and, as a practical necessity, usually focuses on highly plastic traits (e.g., moisture content) that can be modeled across an ecosystem without the need to characterize species-specific characteristics. The other approach grew out of trait-centric comparative ecology and focused on how traits might influence individual plant flammability. However, the degree to which such lab-based flammability trials reflect real species-specific differences maintained during wildland fires has been questioned. We review the history of these approaches, discuss where each has succeeded, and identify areas of research aimed at closing the apparent gap in scale.</p>","PeriodicalId":7691,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Botany","volume":" ","pages":"e70040"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144075514","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Undescribed species diversity in Brewer's jewelflower illuminates potential mechanisms of diversification associated with serpentine endemism","authors":"Kyle Christie,&nbsp;N. Ivalú Cacho,&nbsp;Jacob Macdonald,&nbsp;Deniss J. Martinez,&nbsp;Sharon Y. Strauss","doi":"10.1002/ajb2.70037","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ajb2.70037","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Premise</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Documenting species-level diversity is a fundamental goal of biology, yet undescribed species remain hidden even in well-studied groups. Inaccurate delimitation of species boundaries can limit our understanding of ecological and evolutionary processes and patterns of biodiversity and may further impede conservation and management efforts.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Methods</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>In an integrative approach, we combined techniques from speciation biology, molecular phylogenetics, and geometric morphometrics to assess diversity in the Californian serpentine endemic <i>Streptanthus breweri</i> (Brewer's jewelflower). We assessed reproductive isolation resulting from flowering time differences, mating system differences, and interfertility among four distinct geographic clusters of <i>S. breweri</i> that span the geographic range of the species. We generated a gene tree based on the ribosomal DNA ITS, a diagnostic species-level marker for this clade of jewelflowers, and quantified leaf morphology in plants grown in a greenhouse common garden.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Results</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Four geographic clusters of <i>S. breweri</i> in northern California represent not a single species, but instead a species complex of at least three putative species. Independent data associated with Biological, Phylogenetic, and Morphological species concepts support these conclusions.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Conclusions</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This work illustrates that latent biodiversity may be concealed even in well-studied groups and underscores the contribution of edaphic endemism generally, and serpentine endemism specifically, to California's rich plant biodiversity. The existence of unrecognized species diversity within the <i>S. breweri</i> species complex highlights multiple factors including (1) the spatial context of geologic discontinuities, (2) a selfing mating system, and (3) differential selection pressures across discontinuous specialized habitats as potential drivers of evolutionary divergence on serpentine.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":7691,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Botany","volume":"112 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144075519","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Citizen science records are fuelling exciting discoveries of new plant species","authors":"Thomas Mesaglio,&nbsp;Hervé Sauquet,&nbsp;William K. Cornwell","doi":"10.1002/ajb2.70048","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ajb2.70048","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;Each year, approximately 2000 to 2500 plant species are described as new to science (Cheek et al., &lt;span&gt;2020&lt;/span&gt;). However, there are still, at a minimum, tens of thousands of undescribed plant species (Heywood, &lt;span&gt;2017&lt;/span&gt;). Many of these have already been collected, with numerous recently named species described from specimens collected and deposited in herbaria decades—or even centuries—ago. Many more undescribed species still reside as vouchers in herbaria, waiting to be examined and recognized as novel, highlighting the immense importance of these institutions for understanding plant diversity globally.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are also many undescribed species remaining to be discovered in the field. Traditionally, an important “discovery pathway” for these taxa has been formal collecting expeditions conducted by professional botanists. In some cases, the discovery and description of taxonomic novelties is a primary expedition goal (e.g., Bush Blitz in Australia; Preece et al., &lt;span&gt;2015&lt;/span&gt;). However, for many expeditions, species discovery is just one goal competing with others, including the collection of tissue samples for genomics, ecological monitoring, and the possible rediscovery of potentially extinct species. Furthermore, resources and funding dedicated to discovering new species are limited; finding new opportunities for species discovery is therefore essential.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One such opportunity for discovery is via the citizen science platform iNaturalist (www.inaturalist.org; see Mesaglio, &lt;span&gt;2024&lt;/span&gt;), one of the largest sources of contemporary plant occurrence data globally. As of March 2025, over 92 million verifiable records of plants have been uploaded to iNaturalist from around the globe, covering approximately 172,000 identified species submitted by 2.4 million observers. In addition to the hundreds of scientific papers that use iNaturalist data for ecological and conservation studies, at least 12 new plant species have been discovered, and subsequently formally described, since 2022 through records uploaded to iNaturalist. In some cases, these species had already been collected decades ago, but the specimens had been overlooked or identified as an already described species, while in other cases, the iNaturalist observations were the first known records of those species. Excitingly, these species cover a variety of growth habits, taxonomic groups, vegetation communities, and regions (Figure 1) ranging from a shrub in Rutaceae from the thorn forest of Mexico (&lt;i&gt;Megastigma acarrilloi&lt;/i&gt;; León, &lt;span&gt;2024&lt;/span&gt;), to a geophyte in Iridaceae from the fynbos of South Africa (&lt;i&gt;Moraea anastasia&lt;/i&gt;; Manning et al., &lt;span&gt;2025&lt;/span&gt;), to a mycoheterotrophic herb in Thismiaceae from moist riparian forest in Colombia (&lt;i&gt;Thismia paradisiaca&lt;/i&gt;; Guzmán-Guzmán and Plata-Torres, &lt;span&gt;2023&lt;/span&gt;). All of these cases, however, are united by a critically important common denominator: each species was only recognized as novel ","PeriodicalId":7691,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Botany","volume":"112 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ajb2.70048","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144075512","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Morphological knowledge in plant ecology and why it matters","authors":"Jitka Klimešová,&nbsp;Timothy Harris,&nbsp;Tomáš Herben","doi":"10.1002/ajb2.70043","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ajb2.70043","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;Plant form has been used as a surrogate for studying function from the beginning of the field of plant ecology (Warming, &lt;span&gt;1909&lt;/span&gt;) in multiple approaches, including comparative morphology, growth form and life-form classifications, and plant architecture. Nevertheless, with new methods to directly measure functions such as photosynthesis and an increasing focus on large-scale studies and large data sets, a full consideration of morphology (form) may appear old-fashioned. Still, one branch of plant ecology, trait-based ecology, studies how morphology relates to functions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, trait-based ecology, a subdiscipline that has been developing for several decades (Westoby, &lt;span&gt;1998&lt;/span&gt;), uses well-defined morphological or anatomical traits as a proxy for function (Box 1). It represents a culmination of efforts to understand plant strategies using morphological characters, which began with the work of von Humboldt (&lt;span&gt;1807&lt;/span&gt;), and continued through numerous classifications of growth or life forms (e.g., Raunkiaer, &lt;span&gt;1907&lt;/span&gt;). Finally, at the end of the 20th century, elaborate morphological classifications were replaced by a few plant traits that were easy to measure and collect data that could be analyzed statistically (Westoby, &lt;span&gt;1998&lt;/span&gt;; Weiher et al., &lt;span&gt;1999&lt;/span&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The focus on plant functional traits accelerated this discipline by enabling formalized approaches that could be applied over large scales and ecosystems (Díaz et al., &lt;span&gt;2016&lt;/span&gt;). A few of the traits commonly used for this purpose include acquisitive traits of leaves (e.g., leaf thickness, specific leaf area) and the plant's ability to overtop other plants and acquire aboveground resources (plant height) and to disperse and provision progeny (e.g., seed size) (Westoby, &lt;span&gt;1998&lt;/span&gt;). Acquisitive traits of fine roots have also been added to this portfolio (Bergmann et al., &lt;span&gt;2020&lt;/span&gt;). The ease of data collection for these traits according to standard protocols (Perez-Harguindeguy et al., &lt;span&gt;2013&lt;/span&gt;) has resulted in the assembly of trait values in freely accessible databases (e.g., Kattge et al., &lt;span&gt;2020&lt;/span&gt;) and in the widespread use of functional traits in many ecological disciplines (e.g., invasion ecology, restoration ecology; Westoby, &lt;span&gt;2025&lt;/span&gt;), without directly studying the functions of these traits in an ecological context.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;After a quarter century of functional ecology research, we can see some consequences of the restricted focus on a few easily measurable traits that make broad comparisons across ecosystems or continents possible, but that are free from the “burden” of dealing with the diversity of whole-plant growth forms. This reductionistic approach, which has facilitated unprecedented, large synthetic studies of plant form and function in response to challenges of resource availability (Díaz et al., &lt;span&gt;2016&lt;/span&gt;; Bergmann et al., &lt;span&gt;2020&lt;/span&gt;), has at the same ","PeriodicalId":7691,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Botany","volume":"112 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ajb2.70043","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144075516","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}