Plants In World Research Articles

Deserts may be hiding huge carbon sinks

Irrigation could have locked away more carbon than all the world's plants, and it's somewhere people would never think to look--under the desert. Yan Li of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Urumqi and his team sampled water from a salty aquifer under the Tarim basin--a desert in north-west China--and from a glacier and river that supply it. Using carbon dating, they were able to produce a timeline showing the rate of carbon's arrival in the groundwater over human history. They found that this rate rose dramatically, by more than a factor of 12 over the past 8000 years.

Д. Д. БРЕЖНЕВ – НЕУТОМИМЫЙ ИССЛЕДОВАТЕЛЬ РАСТИТЕЛЬНЫХ РЕСУРСОВ, ПРЕКРАСНЫЙ ОРГАНИЗАТОР НАУКИ И ПРОИЗВОДСТВА, НАСТАВНИК НАУЧНЫХ КАДРОВ (К 110-ЛЕТИЮ СО ДНЯ РОЖДЕНИЯ)

The article describes the life and career of Dmitry Danilovich Brezhnev, N. I. Vavilov’s colleague, scientist of worldwide renown, great organizer of science, who made an undeniable contribution to the development of N. I. Vavilov’s ideas on mobilization, study and use of the world's plant resources.

Developing a World Flora Online - a 2020 challenge to the world's botanists from the international community

Abstract The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation of the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted as its first target in 2010 the preparation of "An online flora of all known plants" by 2020. This target was subsequently adopted by a broadly-based international consortium of botanical institutions that have committed themselves to undertaking this ambitious project. The preparation of a world flora will be the first modern and large-scale and comprehensive attempt to produce a comprehensive overview and baseline of knowledge on the world's plant diversity. This article outlines previous historic efforts to document the world's known flora. It also describes the ways in which the World Flora Online Consortium was created, how it is organized and its plans to compile diverse datasets available in digital formats into a single online portal available and open to all. Such data are being combined from geographical floristic accounts, such as the Flora of China, the Flora of North America and many other regional and national projects, together with relevant monographic treatments.

Overview of application and research of Echinops genus in Chinese medicine

Asteraceae Echionopos (Echinops genus) is one of the world's plants commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine herbs. In this paper, a lot of literature on the basis of domestic and foreign, and modern research on the application of medicinal plants in different ethnic groups in our country Echionopos made a brief presentation and evaluation, and its in Chinese Han, Mongolian, Uygur, Kazak, Korean and other ethnic groups in the application of traditional medicine and related research conducted profiles. To further comprehensive and accurate use of the abundant plant resources and research, in order to find biologically active natural products, provide reference basis for the clinical application of new drugs developed and expanded drug source.

Maximizing the phylogenetic diversity of seed banks.

Ex situ conservation efforts such as those of zoos, botanical gardens, and seed banks will form a vital complement to in situ conservation actions over the coming decades. It is therefore necessary to pay the same attention to the biological diversity represented in ex situ conservation facilities as is often paid to protected-area networks. Building the phylogenetic diversity of ex situ collections will strengthen our capacity to respond to biodiversity loss. Since 2000, the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership has banked seed from 14% of the world's plant species. We assessed the taxonomic, geographic, and phylogenetic diversity of the Millennium Seed Bank collection of legumes (Leguminosae). We compared the collection with all known legume genera, their known geographic range (at country and regional levels), and a genus-level phylogeny of the legume family constructed for this study. Over half the phylogenetic diversity of legumes at the genus level was represented in the Millennium Seed Bank. However, pragmatic prioritization of species of economic importance and endangerment has led to the banking of a less-than-optimal phylogenetic diversity and prioritization of range-restricted species risks an underdispersed collection. The current state of the phylogenetic diversity of legumes in the Millennium Seed Bank could be substantially improved through the strategic banking of relatively few additional taxa. Our method draws on tools that are widely applied to in situ conservation planning, and it can be used to evaluate and improve the phylogenetic diversity of ex situ collections.

Construction begins on world's largest carbon-capture plant

Construction begins on world's largest carbon-capture plant

Tracing the effects of an enormous meteorite impact 3 billion years ago

The most well‐known and popularized meteorite impact occurred 65 million years ago and left behind the Chicxulub crater, a feature more than 110 miles in diameter. Dust kicked up by the impact, which lingered in the atmosphere for years, may have helped kill all the nonavian dinosaurs along with three quarters of the world's plant and animal species.

Study of the Assessment Method for Risk Matrix in Large Mining Steel Structure Large Steel Structure

KONIAMBO project affiliated to the OFFSHORE OIL ENGINEERING CO., LTD is the world's first smelting plant using large modular construction and integration, which is the first integrated, modular building project with many potential risks .In this paper, project risk management system, control method and requirements were built based on risk matrix assessment method, potential risks in each stage and aspect were evaluated, controlled and managed,then risk management guarantee is provided for KONIAMBO project implementation.

Random Sample

The National Museum of Natural History in Paris hosts the world's largest natural history plant collection—and as of last week, the vast majority of its specimens (some 6 million plants) are now digitized as well. And scientists studying regeneration are taking a closer look at the three-banded panther worm, which can regrow any part of its body.

Lessons from the Conservation Assessment of the South African Megaflora1

South Africa has the world's richest temperate flora, with 20,456 indigenous vascular plant taxa recorded. With the current estimate of the global flora at 379,881 taxa, 5% of the world's plant diversity is represented within South African borders. Between 2004 and 2008, South African botanists completed a comprehensive assessment of the status of the South African flora using the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List categories and criteria, version 3.1. South Africa is the first floristically megadiverse country to fully assess the status of its entire flora and to achieve Target 2 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC): “[a]n assessment of the conservation status of all known plant species, as far as possible, to guide conservation action.” Herein, we discuss the critical success factors that allowed an assessment of such a megadiverse flora within five years. Establishing a centralized team of ecologists to develop Red Lists, collaborating with a wide range of botanical experts, streamlining the assessment process via automation, and establishing a data management system that served local conservation needs were crucial to the success of the project. Utilizing the IUCN categories and criteria proved to be, and is suggested as, the most cost-effective measure for other megadiverse countries wanting to achieve Target 2. Quantitative assessments can be done with minimal data, and comprehensive assessments of all known taxa ensure conservation attention for a greater proportion of a flora. The example of South Africa demonstrates that conservation assessments can be done relatively cheaply in developing megadiverse countries (less than $30 per taxon for South Africa). As megadiverse countries have high numbers of endemic plant taxa, it is well worth the investment by IUCN and conservation donors to support continued and future assessment projects.

Toward Target 2 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation: An Expert Analysis of the Puerto Rican Flora to Validate New Streamlined Methods for Assessing Conservation Status1

Target 2 of the 2020 Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) calls for a comprehensive list of the world's threatened plant species. The lack of such a list is one of the greatest impediments to protecting the full complement of the world's plant species, and work to achieve this has been slow. An efficient system for identifying those species that are at risk of extinction could help to achieve this goal in a timeframe sensitive to today's conservation needs. Two systems that efficiently use available data to assess conservation status were tested against a provisional International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List analysis to evaluate the native seed plant species of Puerto Rico. It was demonstrated that both systems efficiently identify species at risk, which is a step toward both the GSPC Target 2 and a more comprehensive IUCN Red List for plants. Both systems were effective at identifying plant species at risk, with the New York analysis identifying 98% and the Smithsonian analysis 85% of the plant species considered Threatened in the IUCN Red List. Both analyses to some extent overestimated those plants at risk, but the species identified are all range restricted and, thus, of some conservation interest.

Crowdsourcing Power Plant Carbon Dioxide Emissions Data

Information on greenhouse gas emissions from the world's power plants is surprisingly limited. Publicly available information such as exact location, fuel, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions varies in comprehensiveness and quality from country to country. A research group at Arizona State University (ASU) is attempting to solve this problem by leveraging crowdsourcing.

Conservation of Tropical Plant Biodiversity: What Have We Done, Where Are We Going?

AbstractPlant biodiversity in the tropics is threatened by intense anthropogenic pressures. Deforestation, habitat degradation, habitat fragmentation, overexploitation, invasive species, pollution, global climate change, and the synergies among them have had a major impact on biodiversity. This review paper provides a brief, yet comprehensive and broad, overview of the main threats to tropical plant biodiversity and how they differ from threats in temperate regions. The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, an international program with 16 global targets set for 2020 aimed at understanding, conserving, and using sustainably the world's plant biodiversity, is then used as a framework to explore efforts in assessing and managing tropical plant conservation in a changing world. Progress on 13 of the 16 outcome‐oriented targets of the Strategy is explored at the pantropical scale. Within each target, I address current challenges in assessing and managing tropical plant biodiversity, identify key questions that should be addressed, and suggest ways for how these challenges might be overcome.

Tidepool power makes a surprising comeback [News

Fifty years ago this July, Electricite de France began sealing off Normandy's La Rance estuary from the sea. After three years of work, the world's first large-scale tidal power plant was born. The station operates still, generating up to 240 megawatts of renewable power as the twice-daily tides force water in and out of the estuary through the hydroturbines seated within its 750-meter-long seawall.

Paleo-Drainage Basin Connectivity Predicts Evolutionary Relationships across Three Southeast Asian Biodiversity Hotspots

Understanding factors driving diversity across biodiversity hotspots is critical for formulating conservation priorities in the face of ongoing and escalating environmental deterioration. While biodiversity hotspots encompass a small fraction of Earth's land surface, more than half the world's plants and two-thirds of terrestrial vertebrate species are endemic to these hotspots. Tropical Southeast (SE) Asia displays extraordinary species richness, encompassing four biodiversity hotspots, though disentangling multiple potential drivers of species richness is confounded by the region's dynamic geological and climatic history. Here, we use multilocus molecular genetic data from dense multispecies sampling of freshwater fishes across three biodiversity hotspots, to test the effect of Quaternary climate change and resulting drainage rearrangements on aquatic faunal diversification. While Cenozoic geological processes have clearly shaped evolutionary history in SE Asian halfbeak fishes, we show that paleo-drainage re-arrangements resulting from Quaternary climate change played a significant role in the spatiotemporal evolution of lowland aquatic taxa, and provide priorities for conservation efforts.

지역경관자원을 활용한 식물원 전시방식의 발전방안

Abstract : Botanic gardens are steadily increasing based on people's increased interests in environment and ecology, lengthened leisure hours and improved transportation. However, similar florae and undifferentiated display are considered as problems, while their functions, purposes and characteristics have been more diversified. This study aims to investigate the present conditions and problems of display at botanic gardens and to find out solutions to make them exhibit plants through various ways of display and have their own characteristic, through a case study of seven botanic gardens. As botanic gardens are being recognized as a cultural institution, they should have limitations in the aspect of places that simply collect and exhibit rare plants. The current problems are unclear setting of design goals and communication with visitors. The gardens should escape from the existing supplier-oriented view to a visitor-oriented view, thinking about what the visitors will be able to see and get there. In particular, their display lacks differency, aesthetics, eye-level display, and multi-layered display. In addition to the essential functions of collecting the world's plants, exhibiting them according to purposes and giving scientific learning, botanic gardens should also show a sense of seasons with plants, trigger interests and amusement through unique plants, make visitors more interested in florae and closer to plants, and include social functions. Botanic gardens should be capable of leaning resources display, speciated display, complex and convergent garden-type display, and display fit for local and cultural contexts.

DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC HERITAGE OF N.I. VAVILOV BY MOVIR SCIENTISTS, NOW SSI VSTISP

MOVIR presented the main achievements in the field of theoretical and applied researches in the 50-year period of formation and development of the institute. The contribution of scientific staff in the maintenance, preservation and study of the collection of the world's plant genetic resources of N.I. Vavilov has been shown.

Analysis of threats to South American flora and its implications for conservation

South America houses a significant proportion of the world's plant diversity and therefore merits conservation attention. However, ongoing habitat fragmentation, degradation and destruction of natural habitats threaten biodiversity. A set of seven threats to natural ecosystems derived from a previous study (Jarvis et al. 2010), combined with a dataset of occurrences from 16,339 species, and also with the World Database of Protected Areas were used to analyse the patterns of threats to flora in South America and its conservation. Species richness per ∼50km side cell ranged from 1 to 2149 taxa, but with most of the areas presenting between 1 and 58 taxa. Population accessibility, expansion of agriculture and grazing pressure were found to be the key drivers of immediate extinction risk. A considerable (78.4%) number of species presented at least one population under high threat due to the expansion and intensification of these anthropogenic activities. In addition, some 13.8% of the analysed species presented up to 80% of their populations at risk of extinction (high threat index). On the conservation side, 82.3% of the analysed taxa have at least one population occurring within a protected site. However, it is important to note that for a protected area system to be effective and efficient, the conservation of within-taxon genetic diversity is required. The expansion, monitoring and strengthening of 24 existing protected areas holding up to 70% of South American plant diversity is suggested; as is the revision of seven additional sites where up to 200 species not currently conserved are present. Critical areas to monitor, expand and strengthen are mainly located in the Ecuadorian and Colombian Andes, southern Paraguay, the Guyana shield, southern Brazil, and Bolivia.

The role of ex situ seed banks in the conservation of plant diversity and in ecological restoration in Latin America

Background: Over half of the world's primary forest and a quarter of the world's plant species are found in Latin America. As a result of the limited protected areas and significant degradation of terrestrial ecosystems, seed banks provide an efficient component of integrated plant conservation strategies, chiefly due to their relatively low cost and massive storage capacity for genetic resources. Aims: We analyse the role that ex situ seed banks play in the conservation and reintroduction of threatened species, and in supporting ecological restoration programmes in the region. Methods: An analysis of the second National Reports on the state of the World's Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture showed that most countries in the region had the capacity for seed conservation. Using three case studies from seed conservation programmes in Mexico, Brazilian Amazonia and Chile, together with the global Millennium Seed Bank Partnership, we review the status and potential of these initiatives for conservation of plant diversity. Conclusion: The collection, conservation and use of seeds from arid and semi-arid biomes is highly effective; however the higher frequency of recalcitrant seeds in humid tropical forests requires a greater investment in research to underpin large-scale seed banking. In order to safeguard native species and provide adequate diversity of seeds for habitat restoration programmes, we anticipate the need to strengthen the capacity of the region's seed banks for preservation, research and propagation of native species.

Plant root distributions and nitrogen uptake predicted by a hypothesis of optimal root foraging

CO2-enrichment experiments consistently show that rooting depth increases when trees are grown at elevated CO2 (eCO2), leading in some experiments to increased capture of available soil nitrogen (N) from deeper soil. However, the link between N uptake and root distributions remains poorly represented in forest ecosystem and global land-surface models. Here, this link is modeled and analyzed using a new optimization hypothesis (MaxNup) for root foraging in relation to the spatial variability of soil N, according to which a given total root mass is distributed vertically in order to maximize annual N uptake. MaxNup leads to analytical predictions for the optimal vertical profile of root biomass, maximum rooting depth, and N-uptake fraction (i.e., the proportion of plant-available soil N taken up annually by roots). We use these predictions to gain new insight into the behavior of the N-uptake fraction in trees growing at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory free-air CO2-enrichment experiment. We also compare MaxNup with empirical equations previously fitted to root-distribution data from all the world's plant biomes, and find that the empirical equations underestimate the capacity of root systems to take up N.