Pollinator diversity benefits natural and agricultural ecosystems, environmental health, and human welfare
September 2022
Biodiversity loss during the Anthropocene is a serious ecological challenge. Pollinators are important vectors that provide multiple essential ecosystem services but are declining rapidly in this changing...
Dissecting mitogenomic conflict to illuminate angiosperm deep phylogeny: Sequence and architectural evidence
January 2026
Deep relationships in the angiosperm tree of life remain highly controversial. To address this, we first assembled the complete mitochondrial genomes for Ceratophyllum demersum and Chloranthus sessilifolius,...
Recent advances on phylogenomics of gymnosperms and a new classification
July 2022
Living gymnosperms comprise four major groups: cycads, Ginkgo, conifers, and gnetophytes. Relationships among/within these lineages have not been fully resolved. Next generation sequencing has made...
A review of ethnobotanical studies reveals over 500 medicinal plants in Mindanao, Philippines
September 2024
Medicinal plants have long been used to treat various diseases in both indigenous and non-indigenous populations of Mindanao, Philippines. Here, we extracted data from ethnobotanical studies to compile...
Physiological diversity of orchids
August 2018
The Orchidaceae is a diverse and wide spread family of flowering plants that are of great value in ornamental, medical, conservation, and evolutionary research. The broad diversity in morphology, growth...
The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau: Climate change, human activity, and plant diversity
November 2025
As the highest and largest plateau in the world, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) covers wide geological, topographical and climatic gradients and thus acts as a major center for biodiversity and houses...
Plant diversity in a changing world: Status, trends, and conservation needs
February 2016
The conservation of plants has not generated the sense of urgency—or the funding—that drives the conservation of animals, although plants are far more important for us. There are an estimated 500,000...
Ethiopian vegetation types, climate and topography
August 2020
Ethiopia is land of geographical contrasts with elevations that range from 125 m below sea level in the Danakil Depression to 4533 m above sea level in the Semien Mountains, a world heritage site. The...
Evaluating the relative importance of predictors in Generalized Additive Models using the gam.hp R package
July 2024
Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) are widely employed in ecological research, serving as a powerful tool for ecologists to explore complex nonlinear relationships between a response variable and predictors....
The role of botanical gardens in scientific research, conservation, and citizen science
August 2018
Plant diversity is currently being lost at an unprecedented rate, resulting in an associated decrease in ecosystem services. About a third of the world's vascular plant species face the threat of extinction...
V.PhyloMaker2: An updated and enlarged R package that can generate very large phylogenies for vascular plants
July 2022
An earlier version of V.PhyloMaker has been broadly used to generate phylogenetic trees of vascular plants for botanical, biogeographical and ecological studies. Here, we update and enlarge this package,...
Evaluating the relative importance of phylogeny and predictors in phylogenetic generalized linear models using the phylolm.hp R package
September 2025
Comparative analyses in ecology and evolution often face the challenge of controlling for the effects of shared ancestry (phylogeny) from those of ecological or trait-based predictors on species traits....
Maintaining biodiversity will define our long-term success
August 2020
Human beings are not only a part of our planet's ecosystems, but also, they are massively overusing them. This makes ecosystem protection, including biodiversity preservation, vital for humanity's future....
Global advances in phylogeny, taxonomy and biogeography of Lauraceae
May 2025
Over the past two decades, our understanding of Lauraceae, a large family of woody plants, has undergone significant advances in phylogeny, taxonomy, and biogeography. Molecular systematic studies have...
Multifaceted plant diversity patterns across the Himalaya: Status and outlook
July 2025
Mountains serve as exceptional natural laboratories for studying biodiversity due to their heterogeneous landforms and climatic zones. The Himalaya, a global biodiversity hotspot, hosts rich endemic...
U.PhyloMaker: An R package that can generate large phylogenetic trees for plants and animals
May 2023
The previously released packages of the PhyloMaker series (i.e. S.PhyloMaker, V.PhyloMaker, and V.PhyloMaker2) have been broadly used to generate phylogenetic trees for ecological and biogeographical...
The first complete plastid genome of Burmannia disticha L. from the mycoheterotrophic monocot family Burmanniaceae
October 2018
Burmanniaceae is one major group within the monocot order Dioscoreales that has not had its plastome sequenced. Members of Burmanniaceae are mostly achlorophyllous, although the genus Burmannia also...
Progress in systematics and biogeography of Orchidaceae
July 2024
Orchidaceae are one of the largest families of angiosperms in terms of species richness. In the last decade, numerous studies have delved into reconstructing the phylogenetic framework of Orchidaceae,...
Worldwide phylogeny and integrative taxonomy of Clematis: Insights from phylogenomics
January 2026
The genus Clematis (Ranunculaceae) comprises over 300 species with remarkable morphological and ecological diversity worldwide. Despite its horticultural, medicinal, and ecological importance, a well-resolved...
Spatio-temporal variation of water salinity in mangroves revealed by continuous monitoring and its relationship to floristic diversity
January 2024
Salinity is among the most critical factors limiting the growth and species distribution of coastal plants. Water salinity in estuarine ecosystems varies temporally and spatially, but the variation...
High-quality genome of Oreocharis mileensis (Gesneriaceae) provides insights into the adaptation and conservation of highly threatened species in karst region
Available online 14 November 2025
Despite the ecological importance of karst ecosystems, genomic studies on the conservation and adaptation of karst plant species, particularly threatened wild species, remain scarce. Here, we investigate...
Phylogeny, character evolution, and classification of Selaginellaceae (lycophytes)
November 2023
Selaginella is the largest and most taxonomically complex genus in lycophytes. The fact that over 750 species are currently treated in a single genus makes Selaginellales/Selaginellaceae unique in pteridophytes....
Genomic insights into alpine plant adaptation
Available online 26 December 2025
Alpine plants persist in some of the harshest terrestrial environments, where low temperatures, high ultraviolet radiation, and short growing seasons impose strong selective pressures. Recent advances...
Changes in plant diversity on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau since the Anthropocene
November 2025
•Since the Anthropocene, both climate change and human activities have exerted increasingly profound impacts on QTP plant diversity.•This special section compiles research and reviews on changes in...
Elevational patterns of multidimensional plant diversity and community structure in a subtropical karst mountain system
Available online 17 December 2025
Understanding the mechanisms driving species assembly along elevational gradients in mountains is crucial for biodiversity conservation. However, no consensus has yet been reached on how these mechanisms...