Still, there are plenty of different ways to cook banana bread, from the cooking method to the ingredients you use. I now disagree more than ever with the digital-age adage that “now everyone is a photographer.” Tens of thousands of dollars in education, equipment and experience separate me from the pros. Professional photographers, like any other artists or business owners, need to spend money to make money. When you hire them, you’re helping them pay for their investments. Bananas generally last in the freezer for nearly 6-8 months. Over time, they will develop freezer burn, so make sure they look and taste alright before using them in any of your dishes or drinks How to Freeze Bananas Freezing a Whole Banana From 2013 to 2015, all rooted lianas with a diameter over 1 cm were tagged, mapped, and identified in the plot according to a standard method described by Gerwing et al. ( 2006) and Schnitzer et al. ( 2008). For species identification, plant samples were collected from October 2018 to December 2018. In total, the plot contains more than 136 liana species. For this study, we selected 29 of the most common liana species in the plot (with a density > 5 stems/ha) of which leaves and branches occurred below 8 m height so that they could be sampled. The 29 species comprised 71% of the total number of marked liana individuals. Lianas can be spatially aggregated due to their short-ranged dispersal (Clark et al. 2018). To avoid bias towards individuals thriving in high resource availability, we randomly selected 3–12 individuals throughout the plot (231 individual samples in total; Table S1). An approximately 40 cm long branch was sampled from the main stem between 3 and 8 m height, i.e., in the lower forest stratum. Only samples from healthy looking, sun-exposed and pest-free individuals with a diameter more than 1 cm were selected. In case the branch did not have enough leaves for all analyses, additional branches were collected from the same individual to obtain additional leaves. At the same time, the number of the 20 m × 20 m quadrats where the individual was rooted was recorded to link the individual in a later stage with light, soil nutrient, water, and topographic data. Functional trait measurements To measure the density of minor veins, for each species, several approximately 1 cm 2 diamonds were excised from the central section of sample leaves and were kept in FAA solution [formalin:glacial acetic acid:ethanol (70%) = 5%:5%:90%] for storage. These leaf diamonds were immersed in a 5% NaOH solution and were heated in water bath at 65 °C. The solution was replaced once it turned dark until the veins were exposed. The samples were then washed with distilled water three times, and the diamonds that turned transparent were placed on glass slides and were stained with 1% safranin. For each leaf diamond, four images (with scale) were taken at 100× magnification using the microscope. The length of the minor veins within the view field was first traced and then measured using the ImageJ software (v.1.52a; Wayne Rasband, National Institutes of Health, USA; http://imagej.nih.gov/ij).

The only root trait that we analyzed (specific root length) was not significantly correlated with any of the stem and leaf traits (Table 2), which is in line with the suggestion of Weemstra et al. ( 2016) that roots are not associated with the plant economics spectrum, as they have to acquire many different nutrient resources, and they can acquire them in many different ways (e.g., through mycorrhizae or root exudates). Liana species with acquisitive trait values occupy higher resource niches Díaz S, Hodgson J, Thompson K, Cabido M, Cornelissen J, Jalili A, Montserrat-Martí G, Grime J, Zarrinkamar F, Asri Y, Band S, Basconcelo S, Castro-Díez P, Funes G, Hamzehee B, Khoshnevi M, Pérez-Harguindeguy N, Pérez-Rontomé M, Shirvany F, Vendramini F, Yazdani S, Abbas-Azimi R, Bogaard A, Boustani S, Charles M, Dehghan M, de Torres-Espuny L, Falczuk V, Guerrero-Campo J, Hynd A, Jones G, Kowsary E, Kazemi-Saeed F, Maestro-Martínez M, Romo-Díez A, Shaw S, Siavash B, Villar-Salvador P, Zak M (2004) The plant traits that drive ecosystems: evidence from three continents. J Veg Sci 15(3):295–304 Larjavaara M, Muller-Landau HC (2010) Rethinking the value of high wood density. Funct Ecol 24(4):701–705 Lambers H, Chapin FS III, Pons TL (2008) Plant physiological ecology. Springer Science & Business MediaLiu W, Meng FR, Zhang Y, Liu Y, Li H (2004) Water input from fog drip in the tropical seasonal rain forest of Xishuangbanna. South-West China J Trop Ecol 20(5):517–524 When freezing banana slices, you need to flash freeze them on a sheet tray first. If you skip this step, the pieces will clump together, and you’ll find it difficult to use them later, especially if you don’t intend to use them all. Reich PB, Walters MB, Ellsworth DS (1997) From tropics to tundra: global convergence in plant functioning. Proc Natl Acad Sci 94(25):13730–13734 Fitter AH (1982) Morphometric analysis of root systems: application of the technique and influence of soil fertility on root system development in two herbaceous species. Plant Cell Environ 5(4):313–322 Is there anything better than a banana bread recipe? Not really, but a serious contender is chocolate chip banana bread!

When resource niches were predicted based on individual traits, then acquisitive trait values indeed often increased the resource niche (i.e., P, K, Zn, stomatal pore index, and thinner leaves increased different resource niches), but not always (e.g., a high leaf nitrogen concentration decreased the soil water, P, and K niche, Table 3). Plant strategies are inherently multivariate and thought to better explain the species niche (Grime 2006). Yet, in our case, individual traits were better predictors of the species niche dimensions than the multivariate strategy axes (i.e., the R 2 was higher; Table S3 and Table S4). This indicates that different components of the multivariate strategy axes, rather than the main strategies themselves are important for different niche dimensions, although it could be, of course, that additional PCA axes, and less obvious axes of plant trait variation, could explain additional variation. Light niche The first step is to mix together all the ‘wet’ ingredients. So, the mashed bananas, melted butter, beaten eggs, milk and vanilla extract.Tanaka Y, Shiraiwa T (2009) Stem growth habit affects leaf morphology and gas exchange traits in soybean. Ann Bot 104(7):1293–1299 van der Sande MT, Poorter L, Schnitzer SA, Engelbrecht BMJ, Markesteijn L (2019) The hydraulic efficiency-safety trade-off differs between lianas and trees. Ecology 100(5):e02666 These are the base ingredients, feel free to add in some extras such as yoghurt, honey, cinnamon, nut butter or a protein powder. Fresh Vs Frozen Ingredients In A Smoothie You can also vary the taste and texture of the banana muffins by adding in some additional ingredients; chocolate chips, walnuts or pecans. Making Banana Muffins