December 21, 2018
Rising carbon dioxide may raise risk of nutrient deficiencies in humans
Plants absorb carbon dioxide to fuel their growth. As humans increase the amount of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, more will be available …
The EARTH archive
Plant Biology
Explore the archive by subject.
21 articles · Page 1 of 1
October 12, 2018
Algae ate themselves to death and caused a global extinction
Errant asteroids and toxic emissions from volcanic eruptions are the usual suspects in mass extinctions. But during the Ordovician, it was a …
October 12, 2018
Globe-trotting kelp set new world record
When marine biologist Erasmo Macaya, from University of Concepción in Chile, found a piece of kelp washed up on a beach in Antarctica, he …
July 3, 2018
A rocky source of nitrogen
Calculations of the planet’s nitrogen balance have always been off: plants and soils seem to sequester far more nitrogen than expected. The …
July 3, 2018
Mountaintops get less lonely for alpine plants
It takes a hardy plant to live on top of a mountain, but new research shows that summits in the Alps are hosting more species of plants than ever …
January 10, 2018
Beavers preserve wetlands in water-stressed areas
Once considered detrimental to ecosystems and nuisances where, for example, dams flooded farmland, beavers have been rhetorically touted in …
January 9, 2018
A flammable planet: Fire finds its place in Earth history
We owe Earth as we know it to fire. Fire-prone ecosystems cover 40 percent of the land surface today, and fires play a key role in maintaining …
October 13, 2017
Mangroves sprouted in Arctic during Eocene
Mangrove trees, which today thrive in tropical and subtropical climates in the low and midlatitudes, grew in the high Russian Arctic about 56 …
October 13, 2017
Chemical clues illuminate fossil plant relationships
To reconstruct relationships among extinct plants and animals, paleontologists often compare genetic sequences from distinct organisms or analyze …
March 29, 2017
Soil acidity changes quickly from place to place
The acidity of soils, which affects soil fertility, depends largely on a region’s climate. What has been less clear is just how abrupt — or …
January 25, 2017
Liverworts, not moss, dominated Earth's early terrestrial ecosystems
Moss, the springy green plant that blankets forest floors, has been heralded as the generator of large amounts of oxygen to Earth’s atmosphere …
May 19, 2016
Lack of fungi did not lead to copious Carboniferous coal
The Carboniferous Period is famous for supplying Earth with an abundance of coal deposits. According to one hypothesis, the formation of all this …
April 19, 2016
Fossil leaves provide clues to ancient Australian habitat
Researchers have long thought that the scrublands of Australia developed over the last 25 million to 30 million years as part of a global trend …
January 7, 2016
Land plants came prepared for terrestrial life
Plants colonized land between 450 million and 420 million years ago, and, once there, they drastically altered terrestrial landscapes and …
August 6, 2015
Thorny plant marks West African diamond deposits
Editor’s note: This story was updated on Oct. 9, 2015, to fix an error in the size of the kimberlite pipe. West Africa is famous for diamonds, …
July 16, 2015
Nonnative plants not a problem in Britain
In many places in the world, nonnative plants are epidemic, outcompeting local flora for space and resources and sometimes leading to extinctions …
June 1, 2015
Tiny plant fossils offer big view of ancient ecosystems
A key part in understanding a terrestrial ecosystem is analyzing its vegetation structure: How dense is the foliage? Is its canopy open or …
May 4, 2015
Amber-encased plant could be oldest known grass: Specimen may also preserve a Cretaceous-aged hallucinogen
Delicate grasses don’t preserve well in the fossil record, and evidence for grasses coexisting with dinosaurs is scant. But according to a new …
April 20, 2015
Ancient moss reveals tsunami timing
Fishermen trawling Norway’s waters have long known of a place where the seafloor drops precipitously into the abyss. It’s called Storegga — or …
January 30, 2015
Fossil leaves reveal effect of "impact winter"
When the Chicxulub bolide struck the Yucatán Peninsula at the end of the Cretaceous about 66 million years ago, widespread extinctions of land …
January 5, 2012
Why red leaves remain elusive in Europe
As leaves change color every fall, the North American landscape transforms from a rolling verdure to a collage of vibrant yellows, oranges and …