OBJECTIVE To determine the distribution of Aedes albopictus (Skuse) in Nuevo Leon between 2001 and 2004. MATERIAL AND METHODS Standardized methods were used to collect 6371 samples of mosquito's larvae from 167 sites. The proportions of samples positive for Ae. albopictus were obtained by municipality and year, using the software program Excel. RESULTS There were 1179 samples positive for A...

Urbanization of a watershed increases impervious area, and consequently increases stormwater runoff. When left uncontrolled, these increases in stormwater runoff cause downstream flooding, accelerate channel erosion, and impair aquatic habitat. Increases in the magnitude and duration of stormwater runoff that accompany uncontrolled development allow a stream to carry more sediment than it could...

Drylands cover about 40 % of the terrestrial land surface and account for approximately 40 % of global net primary productivity. Water is fundamental to the biophysical processes that sustain ecosystem function and food production, particularly in drylands where a tight coupling exists between ecosystem productivity, surface energy balance, biogeochemical cycles, and water resource availability...

For long, widely divergent views (based on isolated pieces of historical evidence or broad geological evolution of the subcontinent, notably the rise of the Himalayas in mid-late Miocene), had prevailed regarding origin and antiquity of the Thar Desert. Studies of the past few decades have since provided a wealth of new information on landform styles, evolutionary processes and palaeoclimate hi...

Soil communities dominated by lichens and mosses (biocrusts) play key roles in maintaining ecosystem structure and functioning in drylands worldwide. However, few studies have explicitly evaluated how climate change-induced impacts on biocrusts affect associated soil microbial communities. We report results from a field experiment conducted in a semiarid Pinus halepensis plantation, where we se...

At biome-scale, terrestrial carbon uptake is controlled mainly by weather variability. Observational data from a global monitoring network indicate that the sensitivity of terrestrial carbon sequestration to mean annual temperature (T) breaks down at a threshold value of 16°C, above which terrestrial CO₂ fluxes are controlled by dryness rather than temperature. Here we show that since 1948 warm...

Land surface albedo is a significant parameter for maintaining a balance in surface energy. It is also an important parameter of bare soil surface albedo for developing land surface process models that accurately reflect diurnal variation characteristics and the mechanism behind the solar spectral radiation albedo on bare soil surfaces and for understanding the relationships between climate fac...

Landscape-scale patterns of vegetation occur worldwide at interfaces between semiarid and arid climates. They are important as potential indicators of climate change and imminent regime shifts and are widely thought to arise from positive feedback between vegetation and infiltration of rainwater. On gentle slopes the typical pattern form is bands (stripes), oriented parallel to the contours, an...

[1] The North American monsoon is a key feature affecting summer climate over Southwestern North America. During the monsoon, evapotranspiration from the Southwest promotes transference of water to the atmosphere which is subsequently distributed across the continent linking the SW to other regions via atmospheric hydrologic connectivity. However, the degree to which atmospheric connectivity re...

In semiarid western North American riparian ecosystems, increased drought and lower streamflows under climate change may reduce plant growth and recruitment, and favor drought-tolerant exotic species over mesic native species. We tested whether elevated atmospheric CO₂ might ameliorate these effects by improving plant water-use efficiency. We examined the effects of CO₂ and water availability o...