Pollinator diversity benefits natural and agricultural ecosystems, environmental health, and human welfare
September 2022
Biodiversity loss during the Anthropocene is a serious ecological challenge. Pollinators are important vectors that provide multiple essential ecosystem services but are declining rapidly in this changing...
Share article
A review of ethnobotanical studies reveals over 500 medicinal plants in Mindanao, Philippines
September 2024
Medicinal plants have long been used to treat various diseases in both indigenous and non-indigenous populations of Mindanao, Philippines. Here, we extracted data from ethnobotanical studies to compile...
Share article
Recent advances on phylogenomics of gymnosperms and a new classification
July 2022
Living gymnosperms comprise four major groups: cycads, Ginkgo, conifers, and gnetophytes. Relationships among/within these lineages have not been fully resolved. Next generation sequencing has made...
Share article
Physiological diversity of orchids
August 2018
The Orchidaceae is a diverse and wide spread family of flowering plants that are of great value in ornamental, medical, conservation, and evolutionary research. The broad diversity in morphology, growth...
Share article
Plant diversity in a changing world: Status, trends, and conservation needs
February 2016
The conservation of plants has not generated the sense of urgency—or the funding—that drives the conservation of animals, although plants are far more important for us. There are an estimated 500,000...
Share article
Maintaining biodiversity will define our long-term success
August 2020
Human beings are not only a part of our planet's ecosystems, but also, they are massively overusing them. This makes ecosystem protection, including biodiversity preservation, vital for humanity's future....
Share article
Ethiopian vegetation types, climate and topography
August 2020
Ethiopia is land of geographical contrasts with elevations that range from 125 m below sea level in the Danakil Depression to 4533 m above sea level in the Semien Mountains, a world heritage site. The...
Share article
The role of botanical gardens in scientific research, conservation, and citizen science
August 2018
Plant diversity is currently being lost at an unprecedented rate, resulting in an associated decrease in ecosystem services. About a third of the world's vascular plant species face the threat of extinction...
Share article
V.PhyloMaker2: An updated and enlarged R package that can generate very large phylogenies for vascular plants
July 2022
An earlier version of V.PhyloMaker has been broadly used to generate phylogenetic trees of vascular plants for botanical, biogeographical and ecological studies. Here, we update and enlarge this package,...
Share article
Evaluating the relative importance of predictors in Generalized Additive Models using the gam.hp R package
July 2024
Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) are widely employed in ecological research, serving as a powerful tool for ecologists to explore complex nonlinear relationships between a response variable and predictors....
Share article
Spatio-temporal variation of water salinity in mangroves revealed by continuous monitoring and its relationship to floristic diversity
January 2024
Salinity is among the most critical factors limiting the growth and species distribution of coastal plants. Water salinity in estuarine ecosystems varies temporally and spatially, but the variation...
Share article
U.PhyloMaker: An R package that can generate large phylogenetic trees for plants and animals
May 2023
The previously released packages of the PhyloMaker series (i.e. S.PhyloMaker, V.PhyloMaker, and V.PhyloMaker2) have been broadly used to generate phylogenetic trees for ecological and biogeographical...
Share article
Phylogeny, character evolution, and classification of Selaginellaceae (lycophytes)
November 2023
Selaginella is the largest and most taxonomically complex genus in lycophytes. The fact that over 750 species are currently treated in a single genus makes Selaginellales/Selaginellaceae unique in pteridophytes....
Share article
The tropical-subtropical evergreen forest transition in East Asia: An exploration
August 2020
The transition from tropical to subtropical (warm temperate) evergreen forests is more clearly apparent in East Asia, from Nepal to the western Pacific coast, than elsewhere in the tropics. We review...
Share article
Phylogenomics, reticulation, and biogeographical history of Elaeagnaceae
November 2024
The angiosperm family Elaeagnaceae comprises three genera and ca. 100 species distributed mainly in Eurasia and North America. Little family-wide phylogenetic and biogeographic research on Elaeagnaceae...
Share article
Progress in systematics and biogeography of Orchidaceae
July 2024
Orchidaceae are one of the largest families of angiosperms in terms of species richness. In the last decade, numerous studies have delved into reconstructing the phylogenetic framework of Orchidaceae,...
Share article
Safeguarding our future by protecting biodiversity
August 2020
The Anthropocene is marked by twin crises: climate change and biodiversity loss. Climate change has tended to dominate the headlines, reflecting, in part, the greater complexity of the biodiversity...
Share article
U.Taxonstand: An R package for standardizing scientific names of plants and animals
January 2023
The scientific names of organisms are key identifiers of plants and animals. Correctly treating scientific names is a prerequisite for biodiversity research and documentation. Here, we present an R...
Share article
The Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot for ferns: Updated phylogeny, hidden diversity, and biogeography of the java fern genus Leptochilus (Polypodiaceae)
November 2024
The Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot is renowned for its rich biodiversity, including that of vascular plants. However, the fern diversity and its endemism in this hotspot have not been well understood...
Share article
Plant diversity in Yunnan: Current status and future directions
August 2020
Yunnan, located in southwestern China, harbors more than 19,000 higher plants, which represents the highest plant diversity in the country. However, plant diversity in Yunnan faces enormous threats...
Share article
Global invasive alien plant management lists: Assessing current practices and adapting to new demands
Available online 14 November 2024
Invasive alien species (IAS) significantly threaten global biodiversity and ecosystem stability. Despite increasing management efforts, a critical knowledge gap existed in understanding commonalities...
Share article
The island rule-like patterns of plant size variation in a young land-bridge archipelago: Roles of environmental circumstance and biotic competition
March 2025
The island rule, a general pattern of dwarfism in large species to gigantism in small species on islands relative to mainland, is typically seen as a macroevolutionary phenomenon. However, whether the...
Share article
Flower morphology of Allium (Amaryllidaceae) and its systematic significance
January 2024
Allium is a complicated genus that includes approximately 1000 species. Although its morphology is well studied, the taxonomic importance of many morphological traits, including floral traits, are poorly...
Share article
Heterogeneous occurrence of evergreen broad-leaved forests in East Asia: Evidence from plant fossils
January 2025
Evergreen broad-leaved forests (EBLFs) are widely distributed in East Asia and play a vital role in ecosystem stability. The occurrence of these forests in East Asia has been a subject of debate across...
Share article
Tibet, the Himalaya, Asian monsoons and biodiversity – In what ways are they related?
October 2017
Prevailing dogma asserts that the uplift of Tibet, the onset of the Asian monsoon system and high biodiversity in southern Asia are linked, and that all occurred after 23 million years ago in the Neogene....
Share article