The Mediterranean regions are submitted to a large variety of climates. In general, the environments are arid and semi-arid with summers characterised by high temperatures and small precipitation. Due to the scarcity of water resources, the correct evaluation of water losses by the crops as evapotranspiration (ET) is very important in these regions. In this paper, we initially present the most ...

Palynological analyses from exposed palaeolacustrine deposits located at the flanks of Damavand volcano, in the central AlborzMountains in Northern Iran, provide a broad idea of the temporal variation of vegetation according to climate changes during a rangeof limited time intervals during the Quaternary period. This research reveals that the regional vegetation of the study area had been asemi...

Variability in woody plant species, vegetation assemblages and anthropogenic activities derails the efforts to have common approaches for estimating biomass and carbon stocks in Africa. In order to suggest management options, it is important to understand the vegetation dynamics and the major drivers governing the observed conditions. This study uses data from 29 sentinel landscapes (4640 plots...

Arid environment is a dry landscape or region that received an extremely low amount of precipitation. Arid areas are located where vegetation cover is sparse to almost nonexistent. Almost one third of earth land surface is arid or desert. Over desert areas, a number of land cover patterns can be observed. One example is given here for the Arabian Peninsula. The located area can be found in Fig....

Soil potassium content in arid and semi-arid region can reflect the conditions of the paleoclimate and it can be inverted by soil spectra. The relationship between soil spectra and soil potassium content was discussed in this research. Based on four reflectance transformations, single-variance analysis and multi-variances inversion model were built to invert potassium content. The results of si...

Sex is by far the most predominant mode of reproduction among eukaryotes. Nevertheless, two new discoveries of asexual reproduction in a lizard and a plant from the Australian arid zone highlight an emerging trend toward the loss of sex in this region. Efforts to understand the processes leading to this pattern should provide important information about the relative advantages and disadvantages...

Sedlacekvia kinchegaensis sp. nov., a new member of the hitherto monotypic genus Sedlacekvia Winkler, 1989 is described from an arid region of New South Wales, Australia. As the genus has not been associated with any subfamily of Cleridae yet, its classification within Clerinae and phylogenetic relation with Odontophlogistus Elston, 1923 (Cleridae: Clerinae) is proposed.