Abstract: Transverse compression of wood is a process that induces large deformations. The process is dominated by elastic and plastic cell wall buckling. This work reports a numerical study of the transverse compression and densification of wood using a large-deformation, elastic–plastic constitutive law. The model is isotropic, formulated within the framework of hyperelasticity, and implemented in explicit material point method (MPM) software. The model was first validated for modeling of cellular materials by compression of an isotropic cellular model specimen. Next, it was used to model compression of wood by first validating use of isotropic, transverse plane properties for tangential compression of hardwood, and then by investigating both tangential and radial compression of softwood. Importantly, the discretization of wood specimens used MPM methods to reproduce accurately the complex morphology of wood anatomy for different species. The simulations have reproduced observations of stress–strain response during wood compression including details of inhomogeneous deformation caused by variations in wood anatomy. © 2014, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Abstract: White-sand forests represent natural laboratories of evolution over their long history throughout Amazonia and the Guiana Shield and pose significant physiological challenges to the plants and animals they host. The study of diversification in plant lineages comprising species endemic to white-sand forest can therefore give insights into processes of evolution and community assembly in tropical forests. In this article, we synthesize recent studies of white-sand forests to integrate patterns of plant species distribution with processes of lineage diversification and community assembly in the white-sand flora. We contrast lineages that have radiated uniquely in these habitats (e.g., Pagamea, Rubiaceae), with cosmopolitan lineages comprising specialists to white-sand forests and other habitats that may have arisen via ecological speciation across habitat gradients (e.g., Protium, Burseraceae). In both cases, similar suites of functional traits have evolved, including investment in dense, long-lived tissues that are well-defended structurally and chemically. White-sand endemics, therefore, play an important role in biodiversity conservation because they represent unique combinations of functional and phylogenetic diversity. Furthermore, white-sand endemics may respond differently than other tropical forest plant species to contemporary global changes because they comprise resilient functional types that may better withstand increased drought, temperature, and invasions of exotic pests in these regions. © 2016 The Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation.

Abstract: In the Amazon basin and the Guiana Shield, white-sand (WS) forests are recognized as a low-resource habitat often composed by a distinct flora with many edaphic endemic plants. Small patches of nutrient-poor white-sand forests can pose a series of challenges to plants and animals. For plants, these challenges have been shown to function as strong filters that in turn drive taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic plant composition. However, very little is known about animal communities in WS forest and the effect that low-resource availability may have on higher trophic levels. Here, we investigate the diversity of both taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of three Lepidoptera families' (Nymphalidae, Saturniidae, and Sphingidae) assemblages between low-resource (White-Sand Forest) and two adjacent high-resource habitats, terra firme clay and seasonally flooded forests. We found no clear effect of habitat type on taxonomic composition although butterfly and moth species abundance differed among the three contrasted habitats. The WS forest Lepidoptera community is significantly more phylogenetically overdispersed than expected by chance. We suggest that these low-resource habitats filter the number of plant lineages which, in turn, creates a bottom-up control structuring Lepidoptera phylogenetic structure. We recommend long-term sampling on Lepidoptera community both at larval and adult stages that may complement this study and test hypotheses linking herbivore phylogenetic structure to plant resource availability and trophic cascade theory. © 2016 The Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation.

Abstract: P>1. Modelling growth strategies among tropical trees is an important objective in predicting the response of tree dynamics to selective logging and in gaining insights into the ecological processes that structure tree communities in managed tropical forests. 2. We developed a disturbance index to model the effects of distance to and area of logging gaps on stem radial growth rates. This index was tested using census data of 43 neotropical tree species, representing a variety of life-history strategies and developmental stages, from a selectively logged forest at Paracou, French Guiana. Growth strategies were analyzed in light of two indicators: the inherent species growth rate (when disturbance index is null) and the species reaction (change in growth rate) to logging gaps. 3. Across species, the predicted inherent growth rates in unlogged forest ranged from 0 center dot 25 to 6 center dot 47 mm year-1, with an average growth of 2 center dot 29 mm year-1. Ontogenetic shifts in inherent growth rate were found in 26 of the 43 species. 4. Species growth response to logging gaps varied widely among species but was significantly positive for 27 species. The effect of ontogeny on growth response to logging was retained for 14 species, and species with inherent fast growth rate (5 mm year-1) responded less to logging gap disturbances than did species with slow inherent growth (1 mm year-1). 5. Functional traits explained 19-42% of the variation in the inherent growth rate and in species' response across all developmental stages. Whereas maximum diameters and seed mass were strong predictors of inherent growth rate, maximum height, wood density, mode of germination and stem architecture were additionally involved in tree growth response. 6. Synthesis and applications: This study provides a necessary framework for developing predictive post-logging growth models for the thousands of species comprising tropical forests and is sufficiently general to apply to a broad range of managed tropical forests.

Abstract: The pollination of the genus Arum (Araceae) is mainly achieved by deception, the floral odour mimicking the pollinator ovipositing site. In order to discover the sensory organs involved in this attraction, we have studied the antennae of five species of psychodine moth-flies (former Psychoda sensu lato = Psychodini), pollinators of Arum spp. The antennae of the five Psychodini reveal seven types of sensilla: multiporous tribranched sensilla basiconica (sensilla ascoidea), multiporous sensilla basiconica, multiporous sensilla coeloconica, multiporous sensilla auricillica, uniporous sensilla basiconica, aporous sensilla chaetica, aporous Böhm's sensilla. Each species possesses three, five or six of these sensillum types. All the multiporous sensilla are probably olfactory receptors while the uniporous sensilla basiconica must possess a contact chemoreceptive function. The multiporous tribranched sensilla basiconica (s. ascoidea), present in all the species, are the best candidates for the reception of the odours given off by the ovipositing sites and the inflorescences of Arum. The multiporous sensilla basiconica and the multiporous sensilla coeloconica may be involved respectively as CO2 receptors or thermoreceptors. Psychoda phalaenoides, which is the main pollinator of A. maculatum, is the species which possesses the largest number of antennal sensilla. The sexual dimorphism, studied only in Psycha grisescens, as concerns the number of sensilla and the absence of a sensillum type which differ according to sex, is difficult to interpret.