plants

How long does an ecosystem remember the weather?

Wenli Zhao August 27, 2026

The hills around Jena, Germany, home to the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, where this study began. Photo credit: Wenli Zhao.

“Plants carry traces of past weather. Reading them may help us navigate a hotter, drier world.” Wenli Zhao As global warming intensifies drought frequency, understanding how ecosystems store and deplete water is critical for anticipating vegetation stress. This blog walks us through a novel groundbreaking study published on EGU journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS). Led b ...[Read More]

Imaggeo On Monday: The desert of the cauliflowers

Luca Barale July 4, 2022

The desert of the cauliflowers. Credit: Luca Barale (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

Bouâmama Cauliflowers (Fredolia aretioides) in the stony plateaus of the Eastern High Atlas near Ayt Wazag (Morocco). The compact, cushion-like habit, the tiny coriaceous leaves and the deep-reaching roots of this shrub allow it to thrive under arid climatic conditions. Photo by Luca Barale, as described on imaggeo.egu.eu. Imaggeo is the EGU’s online open access geosciences image repository ...[Read More]

How certain plants survive mass extinction events: study

Conor Purcell October 11, 2017

How do plants survive mass extinctions? . Credit: Marta Galvagno (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu).

We often read about Earth’s mass extinction events and how they wiped out vast numbers of animal species, leaving survivors to evolve and repopulate the planet. But it’s rarer to hear about how plants managed these catastrophes. A new study published last month by a team at University College Dublin, Ireland, in the journal Nature Plants shows how plants with thicker, heavier leaves we ...[Read More]

Geosciences Column: From the desolate to the diverse, a story of volcanic succession

Sara Mynott July 18, 2014

When a volcano erupts and spews lava onto the surrounding terrain, it is merciless in its destruction. All that is green on the land is engulfed in flame, or buried by an insurmountable mass of molten rock. Whatever charred remains of what lies beneath it will not see the light of day once the lava cools, turning the landscape into a barren black mass of solid basalt. But volcanoes around the worl ...[Read More]