In the arid Mojave Desert, the phenological response of vegetation is largely dependent upon the timing and amount of rainfall, and maps of annual plant cover at any one point in time can vary widely. Our study developed relative annual plant growth models as proxies for annual plant cover using metrics that captured phenological variability in Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MOD...

Figure 1. Realm of possible impacts of invasive plant species on species– area relationships in plant communities: (a) non-invaded community or community with invader cover less than 40% [1,3], (b) heavily invaded plots with invader cover more than 80% and negative impact on small plot diversity [1; 4, fig. 2], (c) heavily invaded plots with negative impact on both small and large plot diversit...

A flatwoods longleaf pine wiregrass ecosystem, which regenerated naturally following wildfire in 1942, on the Coastal Plain of southern Georgia was treated over a period of four decades with prescribed fire at annual, biennial and triennial intervals during the winter dormant season. Burning caused substantial changes in the understory plant community, with significant reductions in the folk co...

Consumer-plant interactions can alter the outcome of biological invasions when native and exotic plants differ systematically in their resistance to and/or tolerance of consumer impacts. Given evidence for indirect interactions and shifts in plant communities from the few existing long-term studies, it is clear that long-term studies are a critical component for understanding the role of consum...

We assessed the effectiveness of very high spatial resolution IKONOS imagery for mapping a top invasive woody plant, Pittosporum undulatum, in a Protected Area in S.Miguel Island. We developed a segmentation-based classification scheme. A strong separability between most important land cover classes and a high accuracy in supervised classification maps was achieved. Overall separability improve...

For an optimum use of natural resources in the sustainable development trend, there is a need to identify ecological resources in the shortest period of time and minimum possible cost. In this article, we aimed Management ecosystem by Assessment of plant covers changes at Taleghan Township in a twenty year period. Percentage of landscape and number of patch were among the metrics that were calc...

The diversity of plant species and their distribution in space are both thought to have important effects on the function of wetland ecosystems. However, knowledge of the relationships between plant species and spatial diversity remains incomplete. In this study, we investigated relationships between spatial pattern and plant species diversity over a five year period following the initial resto...