the study of the relationships of the plant species with the soil in a salty ecosystem would play a significant role in the ecologic programming and management of these inhabitants. the saline and alkaline rangelands of the golestan province are areas that contain salty soil with high underground crusts. the areas are covered by halophyte plants such as frankenia hirsuta. this species is a pere...

Drylands occupy 6.15 billion hectares (Bha) or 47.2% of the world's land area. Of this, 3.5 to 4.0 Bha (57%-65%) are either desertified or prone to desertification. Despite the low soil organic carbon (SOC) concentration, total SOC pool of soils of the drylands is 241 Pg (1 Pg = petagram = 10(15)g = 1 billion metric ton) or 15.5% of the world's total of 1550 Pg to 1-meter depth. Desertification...

Livestock grazing affects over 60% of the world's agricultural lands and can influence rangeland ecosystem services and the quantity and quality of wildlife habitat, resulting in changes in biodiversity. Concomitantly, livestock grazing has the potential to be detrimental to some wildlife species while benefiting other rangeland organisms. Many imperiled grouse species require rangeland landsca...

Grazing ; modifies the structure and function of ecosystems, affecting soil organic carbon (SOC) storage. Although grazing effects on some ecosystem < attributes have been thoroughly reviewed, current literature on grazing effects on SOC needs to be synthesized. Our objective was to synthesize the effects of grazing on SOC stocks in grasslands, establishing the major mechanistic pathways involv...

In semi-arid ecosystems, vegetation is heterogeneously distributed, with plant species often associating in patches. These associations between species are not constant, but depend on the particular response of each species to environmental factors. Here, we investigated how plant species associations change in response to livestock grazing in a semi-arid ecosystem, Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural P...

to reach the desirable ecosystem management, determining the animal dietselection, which is one of the components of rangeland ecosystem, is important. therefore, inorder to determine the grazing behavior and diet selection of sheep and goat, the uplandrangeland of northern part of alborz was selected. in this study, the first weeks of july andaugust of 2009 were chosen for the grazing period o...