Science Enabled by Specimen Data

Allstädt, F. J., A. Koutsodendris, E. Appel, W. Rösler, T. Reichgelt, S. Kaboth-Bahr, A. A. Prokopenko, and J. Pross. 2021. Late Pliocene to early Pleistocene climate dynamics in western North America based on a new pollen record from paleo-Lake Idaho. Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments 101: 177–195. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12549-020-00460-1

Marked by the expansion of ice sheets in the high latitudes, the intensification of Northern Hemisphere glaciation across the Plio/Pleistocene transition at ~ 2.7 Ma represents a critical interval of late Neogene climate evolution. To date, the characteristics of climate change in North America duri…

Bazzicalupo, A. L., J. Whitton, and M. L. Berbee. 2019. Over the hills, but how far away? Estimates of mushroom geographic range extents. Journal of Biogeography. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.13617

Aim: Geographic distributions of mushroom species remain poorly understood despite their importance for advancing our understanding of the habitat requirements, species interactions and ecosystem functions of this key group of organisms. Here, we estimate geographic range extents (maximum within‐spe…

Lake, T. A., R. D. Briscoe Runquist, and D. A. Moeller. 2020. Predicting range expansion of invasive species: Pitfalls and best practices for obtaining biologically realistic projections C. Bellard [ed.],. Diversity and Distributions 26: 1767–1779. https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.13161

Aim: Species distribution models (SDMs) are widely used to forecast potential range expansion of invasive species. However, invasive species occurrence datasets often have spatial biases that may violate key SDM assumptions. In this study, we examined alternative methods of spatial bias correction a…

O’Connell, E., and J. Savage. 2020. Extended leaf phenology has limited benefits for invasive species growing at northern latitudes. Biological Invasions 22: 2957–2974. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-020-02301-w

Many understory woody invasive plants in North America leaf out earlier or retain leaves later than their native associates. This extended leaf phenology is thought to grant invasive species an advantage over native species because spring and fall are crucial times for light access and carbon acquis…

Lindberg, C. L., H. M. Hanslin, M. Schubert, T. Marcussen, B. Trevaskis, J. C. Preston, and S. Fjellheim. 2020. Increased above‐ground resource allocation is a likely precursor for independent evolutionary origins of annuality in the Pooideae grass subfamily. New Phytologist 228: 318–329. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.16666

Semelparous annual plants flower a single time during their one‐year life cycle, investing much of their energy into rapid reproduction. In contrast, iteroparous perennial plants flower multiple times over several years, and partition their resources between reproduction and persistence. To which ex…

Goodwin, Z. A., P. Muñoz-Rodríguez, D. J. Harris, T. Wells, J. R. I. Wood, D. Filer, and R. W. Scotland. 2020. How long does it take to discover a species? Systematics and Biodiversity 18: 784–793. https://doi.org/10.1080/14772000.2020.1751339

The description of a new species is a key step in cataloguing the World’s flora. However, this is only a preliminary stage in a long process of understanding what that species represents. We investigated how long the species discovery process takes by focusing on three key stages: 1, the collection …

Ringelberg, J. J., N. E. Zimmermann, A. Weeks, M. Lavin, and C. E. Hughes. 2020. Biomes as evolutionary arenas: Convergence and conservatism in the trans‐continental succulent biome A. Moles [ed.],. Global Ecology and Biogeography 29: 1100–1113. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13089

Aim: Historically, biomes have been defined based on their structurally and functionally similar vegetation, but there is debate about whether these similarities are superficial, and about how biomes are defined and mapped. We propose that combined assessment of evolutionary convergence of plant fun…

Mohtashamian, M., T. Chatrenoor, F. Fatehi, and A. Rastegar. 2020. Acer iranicum (Sapindaceae), a New Species of Maple from Northern Iran. Systematic Botany 45: 163–172. https://doi.org/10.1600/036364420X15801369352423

Acer iranicum (Sapindaceae s. l., Aceroideae), from the upper limits of the lowland forests toward the midlands in the western part of the Hyrcanian forests, is described as new. Diagnostic characters for A. iranicum are sub-leathery to papery leaves, rounded, elongate sepals, oblong-ovate petals, a…

LU, M., L. CHEN, J. WANG, R. LIU, Y. YANG, M. WEI, and G. DONG. 2019. A brief history of wheat utilization in China. Frontiers of Agricultural Science and Engineering 6: 288. https://doi.org/10.15302/j-fase-2019266

Wheat is one of the most important crops in both China and the world, and its domestication can be traced back to ~10000 years ago. However, the history of its origin and utilization in China remains highly ambiguous. Drawing upon the most recent results of taxonomic, genetic, archeological and text…

Folk, R. A., R. L. Stubbs, M. E. Mort, N. Cellinese, J. M. Allen, P. S. Soltis, D. E. Soltis, and R. P. Guralnick. 2019. Rates of niche and phenotype evolution lag behind diversification in a temperate radiation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116: 10874–10882. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1817999116

Environmental change can create opportunities for increased rates of lineage diversification, but continued species accumulation has been hypothesized to lead to slowdowns via competitive exclusion and niche partitioning. Such density-dependent models imply tight linkages between diversification and…