Physiological ecology of tropical forests
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News, etc
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April 2020
Congratulations to Shatarupa on her recent publication! Ganguly S, Barua D (2020). High herkogamy but low reciprocity characterises isoplethic populations of Jasminum malabaricum, a species with stigma‐height dimorphism. Plant Biology doi.org/10.1111/plb.13127 November 2019
Clear and unequivocal climate emergency A statement endorsed by more than 11,000 scientists from 153 countries, "tells it like it is", and warns of a CLEAR and UNEQUIVOCAL climate emergency facing planet Earth. They recommend deep lasting changes that are urgently needed to check population growth, fossil fuel use, forest destruction and meat eating. Without these, the study says that the world is facing "untold human suffering"! September 2019
Congratulations to Shatarupa who successfully defended her Doctoral thesis: The consequences of intra-population variation in sex organ positions on herkogamy and reciprocity, and consequently reproductive success in species exhibiting style-length polymorphism. June 2019 Record temperatures in Kuwait and Karachi The World Meteorological Organisation recently announced that two recent temperature readings have been accepted as among the hottest recorded on earth. These records of 53.9 degrees and 53.7 degrees Celsius came from Mitribah, Kuwait, on July 21, 2016, and Turbat Pakistan, on May 28, 2017, respectively. These represent the highest temperatures recorded in the last 76 years and the highest ever in continental Asia. Link to Washington Post article June 2019 Alarming rates of plant extinctions - especially from the tropics Rates of plant extinctions were estimated at an alarming rate of 500 times greater than would be expected due to natural causes alone! Almost 600 plants have gone extinct since 1900. Trees and shubs have seen relatively greater rates of extinction as have flora from tropical regions, including India. These numbers are likely to be underestimated, and these high extinctions will have important negative consequences for most other organisms, ecosystems and also on human well-being. Humphreys, A. M., Govaerts, R., Ficinski, S. Z., Lughadha, E. N., & Vorontsova, M. S. (2019). Global dataset shows geography and life form predict modern plant extinction and rediscovery. Nature ecology & evolution, 1. May 2019 Show your stripes Annual average temperatures for India from 1901-2018 using data from Berkeley Earth January 2019 Congratulations Lalitha, Her paper on drought tolerance in tropical dry forest seedlings is out in the Journal of Tropical Ecology |