Flora Library - News about flowers, plants & trees

Forest & trees

Pine beetles successful no matter how far they roam -- with devastating effects - Whether they travel only a few meters or tens of kilometers to a new host tree, female pine beetles use different strategies to find success -- with major negative consequences for pine trees, according to new research.

Heat stress: The climate is putting European forests under sustained pressure - No year since weather records began was as hot and dry as 2018. A first comprehensive analysis of the consequences of this drought and heat event shows that central European forests sustained long-term damage. Even tree species considered drought-resistant, such as beech, pine and silver fir, suffered.

Tree planting does not always boost ecosystem carbon stocks, study finds - Planting huge numbers of trees to mitigate climate change is 'not always the best strategy' - with some experimental sites in Scotland failing to increase carbon stocks, a new study has found.

News & articles

Plants communicate at a molecular level - Biologists have discovered how tomato plants identify Cuscuta as a parasite. The plant has a protein in its cell walls that is identified as 'foreign' by a receptor in the tomato.
Trees bring benefits to society, regardless of their origin - Trees planted in urban spaces provide a multitude of ecosystem and social services. At the same time, trees can be a source of inconveniences. Scientists have analyzed trees found in the Geneva region, and systematically assessed the services and inconveniences they generate. They show that most tree species are non-native, and that trees provide roughly the same ecosystem services to Geneva's urban spaces regardless of their origin.
These two bird-sized dinosaurs evolved the ability to glide, but weren't great at it - Despite having bat-like wings, two small dinosaurs, Yi and Ambopteryx, struggled to fly, only managing to glide clumsily between the trees where they lived, researchers report. Unable to compete with other tree-dwelling dinosaurs and early birds, they went extinct after just a few million years. The findings support that dinosaurs evolved flight in several different ways before modern birds evolved.