Abstract. Climate change is projected to increase the imbalance between supply (precipitation) and atmospheric demand for water (i.e., increased potential evapotranspiration), stressing plants in water-limited environments. Plants may be able offset increasing aridity because rising CO2 increases use efficiency. fertilization has also been cited as one of drivers widespread “greening” phenomeno...

The late Cenozoic climate of East Africa is punctuated by episodes of short, alternating periods of extreme wetness and aridity, superimposed on a regime of subdued moisture availability exhibiting a long-term drying trend. These periods of extreme climate variability appear to correlate with maxima in the 400-thousand-year (kyr) component of the Earth's eccentricity cycle. Prior to 2.7 Ma the ...

Squamates often follow an inverse Bergmann's rule, with larger-bodied animals occurring in warmer areas or at lower latitudes. The size of dorsal scales in lizards has also been proposed to vary along climatic gradients, with species in warmer areas exhibiting larger scales, putatively to reduce heat load. We tested for these patterns in the diverse and widespread lizard genus Sceloporus. Among...

A key feature of anticipated 21st century droughts in Southwest North America is the concurrence of elevated temperatures and increased aridity. Instrumental records and paleoclimatic evidence for past prolonged drought in the Southwest that coincide with elevated temperatures can be assessed to provide insights on temperature-drought relations and to develop worst-case scenarios for the future...

Adaptation of morphological, physiological, or life-history traits of a plant species to heterogeneous habitats through the process of natural selection is a paramount process in evolutionary biology. We have used a population genomic approach to disentangle selection-based and demography-based variation in morphological and life-history traits in the crucifer Diplotaxis harra (Forssk.) Boiss. ...

[1] Changes in desert area due to humans have important implications from a local, regional to global level. Here I focus on the latter in order to better understand estimated changes in desert dust aerosols and the associated iron deposition into oceans. Using 17 model simulations from the World Climate Research Programme’s Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 multi-model dataset and ...

A magnetic polarity stratigraphy is established for a continuously cored 360 m thick section of the entire cyclical lacustrine sequence and part of the sandy fluvial and eolian basal sequence of the Late Triassic Blomidon Formation in the Fundy basin in Nova Scotia (Canada). In conjunction with published results for the Newark and Dan River basins, the Fundy basin record allows us to precisely ...

As global climate change affects recharge and runoff processes, stream flow regimes are being altered. In the American Southwest, increasing aridity is predicted to cause declines in stream base flows and water tables. Another potential outcome of climate change is increased flood intensity. Changes in these stream flow conditions may independently affect vegetation or may have synergistic effe...

Both large-wildlife loss and climatic changes can independently influence the prevalence and distribution of zoonotic disease. Given growing evidence that wildlife loss often has stronger community-level effects in low-productivity areas, we hypothesized that these perturbations would have interactive effects on disease risk. We experimentally tested this hypothesis by measuring tick abundance ...