Invasive grasses (especially Setaria pumila (Poir.) Roem. et Schult) increasingly threaten meadows and pastures as a consequence of human impact and climate change. We conducted a study in 2012 and in 2013 to better understand the growing cycle and the influence of S. pumila on forage quality of...

Extreme droughts can have profound direct consequences for grassland ecosystems, but it is poorly known how ecosystems recover from drought and what ecological factors are associated with recovery. Recovery occurs when ecosystem functioning returns to values observed prior to a perturbation. Here,...

Oligotrophic ecosystems, previously considered to be more resilient to invasive plants, are now recognised to be highly vulnerable to invasions. In these systems, woody legumes show belowground ecosystem engineering characteristics that enable invasion, however, the underlying processes are not...

This study aimed to examine the allelopathic potential of Eucalyptus and Calotropis species on seed germination and seedling growth of Acacia ehrenbergiana (Hayne), Acacia gerrardii (Benth.) and Acacia tortilis (Forssk.). The aqueous leaf extracts of Eucalyptus camaldulensis var. obtusa (Blakely), ...

Plants are expected to respond to global environmental change through shifts in functional traits and in their ranges. These shifts could alter productivity and interactions among species or genetic lineages, ultimately leading to changes in distributions and abundance. In particular, cosmopolitan...

Increased forest biomass production for bioenergy will have various consequences for landscape scenery, depending on both the landscape features present and the character and intensity of the silvicultural and harvesting methods used. We review forest preference research carried out in Finland,...

Arundo donax L. (giant reed) is a perennial rhizomatous grass and a promising energy crop due to its high biomass yield, adaptation to different types of soils and weather conditions, lower tillage requirement than traditional crops, and phytoremediation properties. This review is a comprehensive...

Reed is one of the most frequent and dominant species in wetlands all over the world, with common reed (Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. ex Steud.) as the most widely distributed species. In many wetlands, P. australis plays a highly ambivalent role. On the one hand, in many wetlands it purifies...

Invasive plants are exotic species that escape control by native specialist enemies. However, exotic plants may still be attacked by locally occurring generalist enemies, which can influence the dynamics of biological invasions. If invasive plants have greater defensive (resistance and tolerance)...

Non-native, invasive plants are commonly typified by trait strategies associated with high resource demands and plant invasions are often thought to be dependent upon site resource availability or disturbance. However, the invasion of shade-tolerant woody species into deciduous forests of the...