The attitudes, insights and discoveries that interest me come from thinkers and investigators that have a broad time sense. They see things not just as they are in this moment, but also as they were before and might become in future. This smeared time sense also allows them to think in terms of probabilities and variation, and so gives them a more realistic and useful stance that allows deeper engagement with reality. Conversely, there are many who seem frightened, timid, longing for an end to change, variation and uncertainty. They bore me, and their work is inferior.

Forests species change.

In the recent study, the researchers found that changes in climate were less important than changes in vegetation. Despite a transition from a cool, dry climate to a warm, dry climate about 10,500 years ago, the researchers found a sharp decline in the frequency of fires. Their sediment cores from that time period revealed a vegetation change from flammable shrubs to fire-resistant deciduous trees.

"In this case, a warmer climate was likely more favorable for fire occurrence, but the development of deciduous trees on the landscape offset this direct climatic effect," Higuera said.

The research implies that the impacts of climate change on modern-day fire frequencies could be strongly mediated by changes in vegetation.

Plants use specialized signals, called stress hormones, to sense difficult times and adapt to stressful conditions to enhance survival.

Of the various stress hormones, abscisic acid (ABA), produced naturally by plants, has emerged over the last 30 years as the key hormone that helps plants cope with drought conditions. Under such stress, plants increase their ABA levels, which helps them survive the drought through a process not fully understood. So critical is this endogenous chemical to plant survival that researchers have engineered new drought-resistant crops by tinkering with the ABA pathway.

For years, scientists have contemplated spraying ABA directly onto crops to enhance their protection in times of stress. But ABA is a costly, complicated and light-sensitive molecule that has not found use in agriculture.

Now new research from the laboratory of Sean Cutler, an assistant professor of plant cell biology in the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences at the University of California, Riverside, suggests the possibility of spraying stable synthetic chemicals on plants to enhance stress tolerance during times of drought and improve yield.

Using a method called chemical genomics, pioneered by UC Riverside researchers for studying plant biology, Cutler identified pyrabactin, a new synthetic chemical that turns on the ABA signaling pathway in Arabidopsis, a small flowering plant used widely in plant biology laboratories as a model organism.

Fertilization intensifies competition for light and endangers plant diversity

In the last 50 years levels of plant-available nitrogen and phosphorous have doubled worldwide. This additional supply of plant nutrients is predicted to be one of the three most important causes of biodiversity loss this century. . .

Different plant species profit from nutrient addition to different degrees with some species growing much faster than before. Consequently, some understory species are overgrown by their faster growing neighbours, shaded and without access to sufficient sunlight eventually die out. . .

Competition for light following eutrophication is one of the main causes of the loss of plant diversity. The results of the work from Hector's research group have implications for sustainable management of grasslands and for the development of conservation policy.

See the difference? Those who think dynamically see that change is the only constant. Things have changed and will change again. Life adapts. Understanding that living things contain the capacity to change within them - as they must else they would not currently exist since change has happened continuously over time - diminishes the hunker-down reflex. Rather than fearing change, it is accepted or even assisted.

The diversity worriers can relax. Grasslands change as conditions change - temperature, light, moisture, nutrients - as they always have done, but life forms adapt, new varieties or species evolve, and outsiders move into the hood when it is congenial. A less boring analysis would seek to anticipate such adaptation and evolution, which might be useful in a number of ways. But, even if it isn't useful it is always better to see more clearly and better understand systems dynamics.