Desert ecosystems

Desert Ecosystems: Environment and Producers

Modeling emergent patterns of dynamic desert ecosystems

In many desert ecosystems, vegetation is both patchy and dynamic: vegetated areas are interspersed with patches of bare ground, and both the positioning and the species composition of the vegetated areas exhibit change through time. These characteristics lead to the emergence of multi-scale patterns in vegetation that arise from complex relationships between plants, soils, and transport process...

Evaluation of heavy metals from desert dust in rangeland ecosystems of Khuzestan province

Extended abstract 1- Introduction Desert dust is formed under the influence of special weather and environmental conditions in desert areas and enters the atmosphere. Local hurricanes caused by surface air instability, passing through dry deserts, remove silt and sand particles from the surface and enter the atmosphere. Desert dust physically, in addition to its ecological effects such as lun...

Jackrabbit (Lepus californicus) herbivory changes dominance in desertified Chihuahuan Desert ecosystems

This study addressed the question: can herbivory by a medium size herbivore, black-tail jackrabbits (Lepus californicus), change dominance in desertified ecosystems dominated by two species of shrubs. Shrubs that were pruned by jackrabbits in plant communities dominated by creosotebush (Larrea tridentata) and tarbush (Flourensia cernua) were compared to shrubs not browsed by the rabbits. In the...

Climate Change and UV-B Impacts on Arctic Tundra and Polar Desert Ecosystems

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