Nostoc commune Vaucher (a cyanobacterium) is a very conspicuous terrestrial primary producer in Victoria Land, continental Antarctica. Because polar ecosystems are considered to be especially sensitive to environmental changes, understanding the environmental constraints on net carbon (C) fixation by N. commune is necessary to determine the effects of environmental changes on the ecological functioning of ice‐free areas of the...

The endemic mistletoes Peraxilla colensoi and P. tetrapetala (Loranthaceae) have declined considerably in New Zealand since 1840, reputedly because of introduced herbivores but coincident with a major decline in native bird densities. We show that at two South Island sites ( Craigieburn and Ohau) there are too few bird pollinators visiting the flowers to allow full fruit set. We studied pollination rates in P. colensoi at Wake...

We investigated a variety of non‐destructive measures as potential predictors of mistletoe age as determined anatomically for three mistletoe species, Alepis flavida, Ileostylus micranthus , and Tupeia antarctica . We show that the diameter of the host stem immediately below the haustorial attachment is consistently the best predictor of mistletoe age with R 2 values of 0.622–0.849. We suggest that host branch diameter can be...