Plant Litter
Plant litter (also leaf litter, tree litter, soil litter, litterfall or duff) is dead plant material (such as leaves, bark, needles, twigs, and cladodes) that have fallen to the ground. This detritus or dead organic material and its constituent nutrients are added to the top layer of soil, commonly known as the litter layer or O horizon ("O" for "organic"). Litter is an important factor in ecosystem dynamics, as it is indicative of ecological productivity and may be useful in predicting regional nutrient cycling and soil fertility. Characteristics and variability Litterfall is characterized as fresh, undecomposed, and easily recognizable (by species and type) plant debris. This can be anything from leaves, cones, needles, twigs, bark, seeds/nuts, logs, or reproductive organs (e.g. the stamen of flowering plants). Items larger than 2 cm diameter are referred to as coarse litter, while anything smaller is referred to as fine litter or litter. The type of litterfall is ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gmelina Leaves Forest Floor
''Gmelina'' is a genus of plants in the family Lamiaceae. It consists of about 35 species in Australia, New Guinea, New Caledonia, Southeast Asia, India and a few in Africa. Some species such as ''G. arborea'' have been planted and/or become naturalised in India, Africa and Australia. It was named by Carl Linnaeus in honour of botanist Johann Georg Gmelin. Species This listing draws from de Kok's 2012 revision of this genus, and additional sources including IPNI, APNI and the Flora of China. * ''Gmelina arborea'' – India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, S. China, ( mainland southeast Asia region) * ''Gmelina asiatica'' – India, Sri Lanka, Burma, China, Thailand, Vietnam, (southeast Asia) * ''Gmelina australis'' – Northern Territory, Australia * ''Gmelina basifilum'' – New Guinea, New Britain * ''Gmelina chinensis'' – S. China, Laos, Vietnam * ''Gmelina dalrympleana'' – Wet tropics & Cape York, Australia, New Guinea * ''Gmelina delav ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Annals Of Botany
''Annals of Botany'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal publishing experimental, theoretical and applied papers on all aspects of plant biology. The current (2022) Chief Editor is Rowan Sage, replacing John Seymour (Pat) Heslop-Harrison (University of Leicester, UK and the South China Botanical Garden appointed in 2008). The journal is owned and managed by thAnnals of Botany Company a non-profit educational charity registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales. It is published monthly through Oxford University Press in paper form and online, and is paid for primarily by institutional annual subscriptions. Regular extra issues, published free-of-charge, focus on topical themes. The journal does not levy page charges but authors may choose to pay a standard fee to secure open access status for their papers. According to ''Journal Citation Reports'', in 2019 (published 2020) ''Annals of Botany''’s impact factor was 4.005 and was ranked 27th out of 234 jou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Primary Production
In ecology, primary production is the synthesis of organic compounds from atmospheric or aqueous carbon dioxide. It principally occurs through the process of photosynthesis, which uses light as its source of energy, but it also occurs through chemosynthesis, which uses the oxidation or reduction of inorganic chemical compounds as its source of energy. Almost all life on Earth relies directly or indirectly on primary production. The organisms responsible for primary production are known as ''primary producers'' or autotrophs, and form the base of the food chain. In terrestrial ecoregions, these are mainly plants, while in aquatic ecoregions algae predominate in this role. Ecologists distinguish primary production as either ''net'' or ''gross'', the former accounting for losses to processes such as cellular respiration, the latter not. Overview Primary production is the production of chemical energy in organic compounds by living organisms. The main source of this energy is su ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wildfire
A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a bushfire(bushfires in Australia, in Australia), desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, peat fire, prairie fire, vegetation fire, or veld fire. Fire ecology, Some natural forest ecosystems depend on wildfire. Wildfires are distinct from beneficial human usage of wildland fire, called controlled burn, controlled burning, although controlled burns can turn into wildfires. Fossil charcoal indicates that wildfires began soon after the appearance of terrestrial plants approximately 419 million years ago during the Silurian period. Earth's carbon-rich vegetation, seasonally dry climates, atmospheric oxygen, and widespread lightning and volcanic ignitions create favorable conditions for fires. The occurre ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aeolian Processes
Aeolian processes, also spelled eolian, pertain to wind activity in the study of geology and weather and specifically to the wind's ability to shape the surface of the Earth (or other planets). Winds may erode, transport, and deposit materials and are effective agents in regions with sparse vegetation, a lack of soil moisture and a large supply of unconsolidated sediments. Although water is a much more powerful eroding force than wind, aeolian processes are important in arid environments such as deserts. The term is derived from the name of the Greek god Aeolus, the keeper of the winds. Definition and setting ''Aeolian processes'' are those processes of erosion, transport, and deposition of sediments that are caused by wind at or near the surface of the earth. Sediment deposits produced by the action of wind and the sedimentary structures characteristic of these deposits are also described as ''aeolian''. Aeolian processes are most important in areas where there is little or ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Erosion
Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is distinct from weathering which involves no movement. Removal of rock or soil as clastic sediment is referred to as ''physical'' or ''mechanical'' erosion; this contrasts with ''chemical'' erosion, where soil or rock material is removed from an area by dissolution. Eroded sediment or solutes may be transported just a few millimetres, or for thousands of kilometres. Agents of erosion include rainfall; bedrock wear in rivers; coastal erosion by the sea and waves; glacial plucking, abrasion, and scour; areal flooding; wind abrasion; groundwater processes; and mass movement processes in steep landscapes like landslides and debris flows. The rates at which such processes act control how fast a surface is eroded. Typically, physical erosion procee ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Humus
In classical soil science, humus is the dark organic matter in soil that is formed by the decomposition of plant and animal matter. It is a kind of soil organic matter. It is rich in nutrients and retains moisture in the soil. Humus is the Latin word for "earth" or "ground". In agriculture, "humus" sometimes also is used to describe mature or natural compost extracted from a woodland or other spontaneous source for use as a soil conditioner. It is also used to describe a topsoil horizon that contains organic matter (''humus type'', ''humus form'', or ''humus profile''). Humus has many nutrients that improve the health of soil, nitrogen being the most important. The ratio of carbon to nitrogen (C:N) of humus commonly ranges between eight and fifteen with the median being about twelve. It also significantly affects the bulk density of soil. Humus is amorphous and lacks the "cellular cake structure characteristic of plants, micro-organisms or animals". Description The primary ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Boreal Forests
Taiga (; rus, тайга́, p=tɐjˈɡa; relates to Mongolic and Turkic languages), generally referred to in North America as a boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces, and larches. The taiga or boreal forest has been called the world's largest land biome. In North America, it covers most of inland Canada, Alaska, and parts of the northern contiguous United States. In Eurasia, it covers most of Sweden, Finland, much of Russia from Karelia in the west to the Pacific Ocean (including much of Siberia), much of Norway and Estonia, some of the Scottish Highlands, some lowland/coastal areas of Iceland, and areas of northern Kazakhstan, northern Mongolia, and northern Japan (on the island of Hokkaidō). The main tree species, depending on the length of the growing season and summer temperatures, vary across the world. The taiga of North America is mostly spruce, Scandinavian and Finnish taiga consists of a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chapman & Hall
Chapman & Hall is an imprint owned by CRC Press, originally founded as a British publishing house in London in the first half of the 19th century by Edward Chapman and William Hall. Chapman & Hall were publishers for Charles Dickens (from 1840 until 1844 and again from 1858 until 1870), Thomas Carlyle, William Thackeray, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Anthony Trollope, Eadweard Muybridge and Evelyn Waugh. History Upon Hall's death in 1847, Chapman's cousin Frederic Chapman began his progress through the ranks of the company and eventually becoming a partner in 1858 and sole proprietor on Edward Chapman's retirement from Chapman & Hall in 1866. In 1868 author Anthony Trollope bought a third of the company for his son, Henry Merivale Trollope. From 1902 to 1930 the company's managing director was Arthur Waugh. In the 1930s the company merged with Methuen, a merger which, in 1955, participated in forming the Associated Book Publishers. The latter was acquired by The Thomson Corp ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Journal Of Ecology
The ''Journal of Ecology'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of the ecology of plants. It was established in 1913 and is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the British Ecological Society. The journal publishes papers on plant ecology (including algae) in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. In addition to population and community ecology, articles on biogeochemistry, ecosystems, microbial ecology, physiological plant ecology, climate change, molecular genetics, mycorrhizal ecology, and the interactions between plants and organisms such as animals or bacteria, are published regularly. Besides primary research articles, it publishes "Essay Reviews" and "Forum" articles. In 2008, the first papers in a new series called "Future Directions" were published. These short papers are intended to stimulate debate as to where a field within plant ecology is going, or needs to go. In addition, the journal contains a long-running series on the "Bio ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Latitude
In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pole, with 0° at the Equator. Lines of constant latitude, or ''parallels'', run east–west as circles parallel to the equator. Latitude and ''longitude'' are used together as a coordinate pair to specify a location on the surface of the Earth. On its own, the term "latitude" normally refers to the ''geodetic latitude'' as defined below. Briefly, the geodetic latitude of a point is the angle formed between the vector perpendicular (or ''normal'') to the ellipsoidal surface from the point, and the plane of the equator. Background Two levels of abstraction are employed in the definitions of latitude and longitude. In the first step the physical surface is modeled by the geoid, a surface which approximates the mean sea level over the ocean ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |