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Acacia gerrardii Benth. tree. a Overview of a healthy tree. b Overview of a tree infected with Plicosepalus curviflorus mistletoe. c Close-up view showing how a mistletoe is attached to the host tree. d Close-up view of a healthy branch. e Low infected branch with mistletoe. f Highly infected branch. g Flowering mistletoe with red colored flowers

Acacia gerrardii Benth. tree. a Overview of a healthy tree. b Overview of a tree infected with Plicosepalus curviflorus mistletoe. c Close-up view showing how a mistletoe is attached to the host tree. d Close-up view of a healthy branch. e Low infected branch with mistletoe. f Highly infected branch. g Flowering mistletoe with red colored flowers

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Mistletoes are epiphytic hemiparasitic plants that are known to negatively affect the growth of their hosts, increase tree mortality, and as a consequence change the community dynamics. Mistletoe alters the mineral nutrition of the host and the nutrient cycle in the soil. In the present study, the elemental nutrient status is described for Acacia a...

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... The woody parasites P. acaciae and P. curviflorus are widespread parasites of Vachellia [48]. Al-Rowaily et al. [24] reported a high infection incidence of P. curviflorus in different species of Vachellia genus in Saudi Arabia's southern and western areas, resulting in ecosystem degradation and loss of diversity and soil nutrients. Other studies demonstrated that mistletoe preferentially infects massive trees over small ones [64,65]. ...
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The ecology and diversity of flowering parasitic plants and their hosts are poorly investigated and usually ignored in Saudi Arabian plant communities. Therefore, this work aimed at assessing the ecology and diversity of parasitic plants and their hosts along an elevation gradient in the Al-Baha region (1300–2400 m.a.s.l.). Different quantitative vegetation parameters were applied to analyze the collected data. Eight parasitic plants from six genera and four families were identified along the gradient, with 67% of them being zoochorously dispersed species. They accounted for approximately 23.5% (8 out of 34) of those found throughout Saudi Arabia. Perennials, stem hemiparasites, and biregional taxa accounted for around 62.5% of the total parasites, whereas indigenous species accounted for 75%. The dominant family of parasitic species was Loranthaceae (50%), and Phragmanthera austroarabica A.G.Mill. & J.A.Nyberg was the most important species (IVI = 107.28). Orobanche cernua Loefl. and Loranthella deflersii (Tiegh.) S.Blanco & C.E.Wetzel were restricted to the dry zone (low elevation) only, while the other parasites were distributed across the surveyed region. Twenty-three host plants were identified throughout the study region. About 83% of them were phanerophytes and bioregional plants, with 91% being perennial species. The prevalent host plant family across all sites was Fabaceae, with Nicotina glauca Graham being the most important host species (IVI = 32.44%). P. austroarabica and Plicosepalus curviflorus Tiegh. preferred Vachellias as host plants, while Vachellia flava (Forssk.) Kyal. & Boatwr. was the heavily infected host by P. austroarabica. P. austroarabica had a broad spectrum of host range (13 host plants), while O. cernua had a very narrow host range (only Rumex nervosus Vahl). Individual parasite and host species were markedly more abundant in the wet zone than in the low-altitude dry zone. Further research is needed to fully understand such distinctive groups of plants and their negative and positive ecological consequences on plant biodiversity and natural ecosystems.
... Many mistletoe-host comparative studies on mineral nutrients have been conducted over the past 40 yr (Lamont, 1983;Ehleringer et al., 1986;Glatzel & Geils, 2009;Scalon et al., 2013;Al-Rowaily et al., 2020). Theory based on such studies has posited that the higher transpiration rates of mistletoes than their hosts serve a nutrient-gathering role since mistletoes have evolved a lower energetic investment in haustoria than would be the case for free-standing plants that require structural and conducting roots (Schulze et al., 1991). ...
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... Mistletoes on tree canopies have been shown to increase the availability of nutrients through augmented litterfall, thus further enhancing heterogeneity and increasing species richness of understory assemblages (March and Watson, 2007;Muvengwi et al., 2015;Ndagurwa et al., 2016Ndagurwa et al., , 2018Hódar et al., 2018;Al-Rowaily et al., 2020). For example, Ndagurwa et al. (2013) showed that mistletoes produced significantly more litter than their host, Vachellia karroo (Hayne) Banfi & Galasso trees, thus increasing nutrients within the canopy patches of mistletoe-infected trees. ...
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... They observed that potassium decreased in Acacia trees proportionally to the degree of infection. Compared to uninfected trees, potassium levels decreased by 52% [9]. ...
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Mistletoes are emerging as important co-contributors to tree mortality across terrestrial ecosystems, particularly when infected trees are stressed by water limitations during drought. While the mechanistic effects of mistletoe infection on host physiology are reasonably well understood, quantifying the effects of mistletoe infection on stand productivity, canopy turnover and ecosystem structure remains challenging. Moreover, the potential devastating effect of mistletoe infection on host survival has distracted from the challenges that mistletoe populations are facing when increasing drought and heat stress threaten their survival in healthy populations. We coupled intensive observations of mistletoe population dynamics with measurements of host tree stem growth, canopy turnover and stand structure in a severely infected temperate eucalypt woodland to monitor how mistletoe infection alters aboveground biomass distribution and to assess ecosystem recovery from severe mistletoe infection during and after a three-year drought. We show that severe mistletoe infection reduces live standing biomass and canopy volume, with mistletoe leaves contributing up to 43% to total stand litter fall. We further identified that a mistletoe:host leaf area ratio above 60% significantly reduced basal area growth, which provides a threshold for productivity losses due to mistletoe infection in eucalypts. Yet, concurrent increases in basal area and the thickening of canopy volume indicate that host trees recover rapidly after the three-year drought combined with record summer heat nearly extinguished the mistletoe population. How common, or how widespread such dynamic changes in mistletoe population dynamics are within Australian or global ecosystems remains subject to further exploration.