The higher up, the smaller the seeds

How the mass of plant seeds change with altitude is studied in the new Oikos Early View paper "Disentangling ecological, allometric and evolutionary determinants of the relationship between seed mass and elevation: insights from multiple analyses of 1355 angiosperm species on the eastern Tibetan Plateau" by W. Qi et al. Below you find some photos from the field work and a short story by the authors:

In each summer and autumn during 2001-2008, Wei Qi, Guozhen Du and their colleagues collected seeds (Fig. 1, Wei Qi is collecting seeds; Fig. 2, Guozhen Du is collecting seeds), collected plant specimens (Fig. 3) and recorded elevation and habitat information (Fig. 4) on the northeastern verge of the Tibetan Plateau in China (101°05′-104°40′ E, 32°60′-35°30′ N). Here, you can see towering mountains (Fig. 5), grotesque rock formations (Fig. 6), crystal clear waters (Fig. 7), dense forests (Fig. 8), beautiful meadows (Fig. 9) and magnificent temples (Fig. 10). Seed collection is a hard work. Sometime, we had to climb cliffs (Fig. 11) or to ride horses (Fig. 12). Moreover, in order to save time to collect seeds, we often ate cakes in the car (Fig. 13) or drank beer under the snowy mountain (Fig. 14). In spite of this, we are always happy (Fig. 15), because we belong to a cohesive group (Fig. 16).

[gallery ids="3832,3831,3830,3829,3828,3827,3826,3822,3821,3825,3824,3823,3834,3833,3835,3820"]