Climate adaptation begins with seeds: Lessons from dryland tree recruitment

Alexandra Urza, Whitebark Institute in California, discusses her article: Seed source climate and precipitation timing determine dryland tree recruitment in hot and dry range margins As climate change intensifies drought and reshapes precipitation patterns across western North America, many dryland forests are facing an uncertain future. Adult trees can survive harsh conditions for centuries, but…

Mariona Pajares-Murgó on how mutualistic and antagonistic phyllosphere fungi contribute to plant recruitment in natural communities

The interest on the microbial ecosystems that inhabit leaves is rapidly increasing due to their participation in basic ecosystem functions. One of the aspects of plant dynamics which leaf fungi can most clearly affect is recruitment, since the success of newly germinated plants can be seriously compromised by pathogenic activity or by the absence of…