Tagged: plants

Featured image: Why plants don’t simply grow faster with more carbon dioxide in air

Why plants don’t simply grow faster with more carbon dioxide in air - Climate: Explained

Guest Author • Aug 16, 2019 •

Climate: Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz Carbon dioxide is a fertiliser for plants, so if its concentration increases in the atmosphere then plants will grow … Read More

Featured image: How the first trees grew so tall with hollow cores – new research

How the first trees grew so tall with hollow cores – new research - Guest Work

Guest Author • Mar 30, 2018 •

Christopher M. Berry, Cardiff University This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Imagine a world without trees, and then try to think about the changes that would need to happen for these trees to evolve from the small primitive plants that came before them. I spend as much time as I … Read More

Featured image: Why apartment dwellers need indoor plants

Why apartment dwellers need indoor plants - Guest Work

Guest Author • Jul 25, 2017 •

Danica-Lea Larcombe, Edith Cowan University The number of Australians living in high-rise apartments doubled between 1991 and 2011 and that trend has continued since then. The quarter-acre dream is fast disappearing and larger blocks and family gardens along with it. As more people move from country areas to the city and as land to build homes near … Read More

Featured image: Local extinctions: Climate change’s vanishing trick

Local extinctions: Climate change’s vanishing trick - News

John Kerr • Dec 09, 2016 •

Now you see them, now you don’t. Hundreds of species have already undergone ‘local extinctions’ because of climate change, according to new a study. As overall temperatures increase around the world thanks to climate change, plants and animals are starting to shift their geographic range closer to the cooler poles of the planet, or higher up the slopes of mountains. Read More

Featured image: Honeybee decline could sting NZ for $700m

Honeybee decline could sting NZ for $700m - News

John Kerr • Aug 03, 2016 •

The pollinating power of the humble honeybee is worth millions of dollars to the New Zealand agricultural sector – but we are at risk of losing it. Bees are having a hard time of it these days; varroa mite, pesticides and a lack of plant diversity are all contributing to the decline of the bee populations crucial for pollinating crops. Read More

When things grow wild – post-earthquake natural succession in Christchurch gardens - Code for life

Grant Jacobs • Dec 20, 2012 •

While I madly tackle the pre-Christmas to-do list (sigh) I’d like to give a shout-out to a blog post by Glenn Stewart,  Professor of Urban Ecology, Lincoln University (near Christchurch), about what is happening to gardens in ‘abandoned’ Christchurch homes. As you might expect, they’re growing wild, with a natural succession taking place that is … Read More

Plants in the water cycle - Waiology

Waiology • Jun 30, 2011 •

By Daniel Collins When you think about hydrology, the first things that come to mind are often rain and rivers, not plants. But plants have a significant effect on how much rain actually reaches the rivers. We see this most readily in the reduction in river flow when grassland is replaced by shrubland or forest. Low flows, mean flow and … Read More

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