Biodiversity today has the unusual property that 85% of plant and animal species live on
land rather than in the sea, and half of these live in tropical rainforests. An explosive boost to …

The Andes are the world's most biodiverse mountain chain, encompassing a complex array
of ecosystems from tropical rainforests to alpine habitats. We provide a synthesis of Andean …

Plant roots have greatly diversified in form and function since the emergence of the first land
plants,, but the global organization of functional traits in roots remains poorly understood …

The end-Cretaceous event was catastrophic for terrestrial communities worldwide, yet its
long-lasting effect on tropical forests remains largely unknown. We quantified plant …

The American tropics (the Neotropics) are the most species-rich realm on Earth, and for
centuries, scientists have attempted to understand the origins and evolution of their …

Abstract The Early Cretaceous (145–100 million years ago (Ma)) witnessed the rise of
flowering plants (angiosperms), which ultimately lead to profound changes in terrestrial plant …

This book explores the geography, ecology, and antiquity of'open ecosystems', which
include grasslands, savannas, and shrublands. They occur in climates that can support …

Roughly 3% of the Earth's land surface burns annually, representing a critical exchange of
energy and matter between the land and atmosphere via combustion. Fires range from slow …

Determining the timing of diversification of modern birds has been difficult. We combined
DNA sequences of clock-like genes for most avian families with 130 fossil birds to generate …

Paleobotanists have long used models based on leaf size and shape to reconstruct
paleoclimate. However, most models incorporate a single variable or use traits that are not …