A common form of land degradation at the desert margins involves the rapid encroachment of woody plants into historic grasslands and the acceleration of soil erosion as a result of the loss of grass cover (Archer, 1989; Schlesinger et al., 1990). The conversion of perennial grasslands into desert scrublands has been documented worldwide (Van Auken, 2000; Ravi, 2008) and has important implicatio...
