Plant ecology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pollinators are thought to be a driver of plant diversification, but their effects are difficult to disentangle from those of other biotic and abiotic factors. Here, the authors let plants evolve under different pollination regimes and show rapid and divergent evolution of plant height, floral traits and mating system.

    • Daniel D. L. Gervasi
    •  & Florian P Schiestl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plants with the capability to reproduce easily without mates and pollinators could have an advantage when colonizing new territory. Here, Razanajatovoet al. use a global database to infer that flowering plants capable of selfing have become naturalized in a larger number of regions than those that must outcross.

    • Mialy Razanajatovo
    • , Noëlie Maurel
    •  & Mark van Kleunen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Laboratory-based studies of the effect of plant genotype on plant microbiome composition often do not consider the influence of environmental heterogeneity. Here, Wagner et al. use a large-scale field experiment to assess the extent of host genetic and environmental factors on the microbiome of Boechera stricta.

    • Maggie R. Wagner
    • , Derek S Lundberg
    •  & Thomas Mitchell-Olds

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global gridded crop models are increasingly used to assess climate change impacts on food production. Here, the authors assess crop yield uncertainty associated with soil data input, reporting that soil type strongly influences yield estimates, and may either buffer or amplify climate-related impacts.

    • Christian Folberth
    • , Rastislav Skalský
    •  & Marijn van der Velde

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The extent to which non-crop plants may be contaminated by insecticides is not known. Here, the authors show that pollen collected by honey bees living in areas of intensive maize production is contaminated by a wide range of pesticides throughout the growing season, with the principle pollen source being non-crop plants.

    • Elizabeth Y. Long
    •  & Christian H. Krupke

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Defaunation is linked to the decline of tree species that depend on large animals for seed dispersal, but it is unclear if this affects carbon storage. Here the authors show that defaunation effects on carbon storage vary across continents, driven by relationships between seed dispersal strategies and adult tree size.

    • Anand M. Osuri
    • , Jayashree Ratnam
    •  & Mahesh Sankaran

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fitness advantages conferred on species living at low density is thought to be one mechanism by which stable biodiversity is maintained. Here, Liu et al. show that recruitment of seedlings in high-density populations of a subtropical tree is suppressed by soil pathogens, with little effect at low-density.

    • Yu Liu
    • , Suqin Fang
    •  & Fangliang He

  • Article
    | Open Access

    During herbivory, deglycosylation of glycosylated phytochemicals may release aglycones which can be toxic when ingested. Here, Poreddy et al. show that ß-glucosidase in the tobacco hornworm midgut converts a toxic glycoside to a non-toxic form, a process which is crucial for larval development.

    • Spoorthi Poreddy
    • , Sirsha Mitra
    •  & Sagar S. Pandit

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Co-infection of plants with multiple pathogen strains is predicted to alter disease dynamics. Here, Susi et al.use experimental and natural population data to show that co-infected host plants spread more disease and cause more devastating epidemics than singly infected hosts.

    • Hanna Susi
    • , Benoit Barrès
    •  & Anna-Liisa Laine

  • Article |

    The effect of a host's genetic variation on the structure of its microbial community is poorly understood. Here, Horton et al. reveal associations between genetic variants in the plant model species Arabidopsis thalianaand the composition of the leaves' microbial communities.

    • Matthew W. Horton
    • , Natacha Bodenhausen
    •  & Joy Bergelson

  • Article |

    Assembly of the root surface microbiome varies according to soil type and plant species. Here, Ofek-Lalzar et al.use metagenome and metatranscriptome analysis to reveal distinct functional signatures of microbial communities associated with two diverse plant hosts.

    • Maya Ofek-Lalzar
    • , Noa Sela
    •  & Dror Minz

  • Article |

    Some minerals, such as gypsum, hold water in their crystalline structure. Palacio et al. show that shallow-rooted plants growing on gypsum are able to make use of this crystallization water, suggesting an alternative water source for plants under conditions of severe drought.

    • Sara Palacio
    • , José Azorín
    •  & Juan Pedro Ferrio

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Symbiotic associations are widespread, yet their evolutionary histories remain poorly understood. Here, Werner et. al.show a single evolutionary innovation driving symbiotic nitrogen fixation, followed by multiple gains and losses of the symbiosis and the emergence of groups with stable nitrogen fixers.

    • Gijsbert D. A. Werner
    • , William K. Cornwell
    •  & E. Toby Kiers

  • Article |

    El Niño Southern Oscillation affects seasonal climate worldwide; however, it is uncertain how it impacts global crop yields. Here, the authors present a global assessment of the impacts of El Niño Southern Oscillation on crop productivity and show large differences among regions, crop types and cropping technologies.

    • Toshichika Iizumi
    • , Jing-Jia Luo
    •  & Toshio Yamagata

  • Article |

    Resources are finite for living organisms; therefore, compromises are required when partitioning resources to different tasks. Here, the authors use the Pareto concept to show how a trade-off is achieved in terms of the performance and metabolic efficiency in a panel of 97 Arabidopsis thalianaaccessions.

    • Sabrina Kleessen
    • , Roosa Laitinen
    •  & Zoran Nikoloski

  • Article |

    It is generally assumed that ecologically relevant intraspecific diversity is restricted to DNA sequence variation. Here, Latzel et al.show that epigenetic diversity can increase the productivity of plant populations as well as their ability to suppress competitors.

    • Vít Latzel
    • , Eric Allan
    •  & Oliver Bossdorf

  • Article |

    Plants have two mechanisms to respond to infection; pattern-triggered immunity detects conserved microbial compounds, whereas effector-triggered immunity recognizes proteins secreted by pathogens. In this study, Cheng et al. report that temperature determines which of these immune systems is preferentially induced.

    • Cheng Cheng
    • , Xiquan Gao
    •  & Ping He

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding how species assemblages change over time is crucial for conservation. Here, the authors assess the changes of compartmentalized structure in native and alien species across millennia, and show that older assemblages can form more functionally distinctive modules than younger ones.

    • Cang Hui
    • , David M. Richardson
    •  & Vojtěch Jarošík

  • Article |

    The social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum displays a primitive form of agriculture with some clones carrying bacteria to seed out food crops. Brock et al. now demonstrate that these farmers also carry non-food bacteria that harm competing non-farmer amoeba clones, protecting the crop from exploitation.

    • Debra A. Brock
    • , Silven Read
    •  & Joan E. Strassmann

  • Article |

    Environmental conditions are likely to become more temporally variable with global environmental change. Parepa et al. show that temporal variability on soil nutrient availability strongly promotes plant invasion and consequently can be a strong driver of ecological changes.

    • Madalin Parepa
    • , Markus Fischer
    •  & Oliver Bossdorf

  • Article |

    Plants such asArabidopsishave evolved genetic adaptations to their geographic location. Here, a network-based approach is applied to study the link between geographic location and heterogeneous molecular phenotypes, revealing a pattern of isolation by distance in genotypic variability, flowering and metabolic phenotypes.

    • Sabrina Kleessen
    • , Carla Antonio
    •  & Zoran Nikoloski

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The great increase in flowering angiosperm plants during the Cretaceous began the change towards modern biodiversity. This study shows that rapid angiosperm evolution was possible once the leaf interior transport path length for water became shorter than the leaf interior transport path length for carbon dioxide.

    • Hugo Jan de Boer
    • , Maarten B. Eppinga
    •  & Stefan C. Dekker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Some social aphids have evolved to live inside completely closed galls, which presents a waste disposal problem of the honeydew that collects inside the gall. Here, Kutsukake et al.show that the gall inner surface is specialized for absorbing water, removing honeydew via the plant vascular system.

    • Mayako Kutsukake
    • , Xian-Ying Meng
    •  & Takema Fukatsu

  • Article |

    Human influence on an ecosystem generates a predictable pattern in biodiversity. In a study of boreal plant communities, Mayoret al.show that the species richness of native vascular plants fits the predicted hump-shaped relationship to human disturbance, reaching a maximum when half of the landscape is disturbed.

    • S.J. Mayor
    • , J.F. Cahill Jr
    •  & S. Boutin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The size of dicotyledon leaves and their venation vary enormously across ecosystems. In this study, using 485 plant species, scaling relationships are presented between vein traits and leaf size, and explained based on a developmental algorithm that demonstrates why smaller leaves persist in drier areas.

    • Lawren Sack
    • , Christine Scoffoni
    •  & Thusuong Tran

  • Article |

    Trees of the genusEucalyptusdominate the flora in Australia and can undergo resprouting after fire. Here, fossils and DNA of eucalypts reveal that the resprouting feature of the trees can be linked to the evolution of fire biomes, and that this likely began 60 million years ago.

    • Michael D. Crisp
    • , Geoffrey E. Burrows
    •  & David M. J. S. Bowman

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