Carbon-dioxide-driven increase in foliage projective cover is not the same as increased woody plant density: lessons from an Australian tropical savanna

Rainfall, land use and woody vegetation cover change in semi-arid Australian savanna

1 The relative roles of climate and management for driving changes in woody cover in savannas over the past century are the subject of active debate. Perspectives arising from short-term, small-scale, local experiments are rarely tested over larger scales and longer time frames. 2 Regression analysis and aerial photography were used to assess the relative importance of land-use history (fire an...

Biogeochemical Changes Accompanying Woody Plant Encroachment in a Subtropical Savanna

Ecosystem properties of surficial (0–10 cm) soils in remnant herbaceous patches were compared to those of contrasting woody plant patch types (upland discrete cluster, upland grove, and lowland woodland) where shifting land cover is known to have occurred over the past 50–77 yr. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and quantify the biogeochemical consequences and subsequent developmental r...

Effects of seasonal drought on net carbon dioxide exchange from a woody-plant-encroached semiarid grassland

[1] Annual precipitation in the central and southern warm-desert region of North America is distributed climatologically between summer and winter periods with two prominent dry periods between them. We used energy and carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes from eddy covariance along with standard meteorological and soil moisture measurements at a semiarid savanna in southern Arizona, United States, to be...

Estimating Woody Vegetation Cover in an African Savanna using remote sensing and Geostatistics

The biodiversity cost of carbon sequestration in tropical savanna

Tropical savannas have been increasingly viewed as an opportunity for carbon sequestration through fire suppression and afforestation, but insufficient attention has been given to the consequences for biodiversity. To evaluate the biodiversity costs of increasing carbon sequestration, we quantified changes in ecosystem carbon stocks and the associated changes in communities of plants and ants r...