Biological soil crusts are key mediators of carbon and nitrogen inputs for arid land soils and often represent a dominant portion of the soil surface cover in arid lands. Free-living soil nematode communities reflect their environment and have been used as biological indicators of soil condition. In this study, we test the hypothesis that nematode communities are successionally more mature bene...

We present the first study that evaluates jaguar-puma interactions in the arid lands of northern Mexico, where jaguars have their northernmost breeding population and both predators are persecuted for livestock depredation. We tested whether jaguars are the dominant species in this unique ecosystem, where: (1) pumas outnumber jaguars, (2) pumas are better adapted to arid environments, and (3) j...

This study investigates variation over time, space and household and individual characteristics in how people perceive different risks. Using original data from the arid and semi-arid lands of east Africa, we explore which risks concern individuals and how they assess their relative level of concern about these identified risks. Because these assessments were gathered for multiple time periods,...

Although dry farming is important in Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, and Khorasan, as well as some other districts, a large proportion of Iran’s agriculture has always depended upon irrigation. Approximately half the annual grain crop, and an overwhelming proportion of other crops, are irrigated. With the exception of the Caspian littoral almost the whole of Iran is classified as semi-arid or arid. As i...

Intensively managed microalgal production facilities are capable of fixing several-fold more carbon dioxide per unit area than trees or crops. Although CO, is still released when fuels derived from algal biomass are burned, integration of microalgal farms for flue gas capture approximately doubles the amount of energy produced per unit of CO, released. Materials derived from microalgal biomass ...

Riparian Zones are considered biodiversity and ecosystem services hotspots. In arid environments, these ecosystems represent key habitats, since water availability makes them unique in terms of fauna, flora and ecological processes. Simple yet powerful remote sensing techniques were used to assess how spatial and temporal land cover dynamics, and water depth reflect distribution of key land cov...

There is a growing interest worldwide to find out new and cheap carbohydrate sources for production of bioethanol. In this work, carob pod (Ceratonia Siliqua) is proposed as an economical source for ethanol production, especially, in arid regions. The carob tree is an evergreen shrub native to the Mediterranean region, cultivated for its edible seed pods and it is currently being reemphasised a...

Rates and impacts of atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition are poorly understood in arid land ecosystems where soils are typically low in plant available N. To address this issue, we quantified long-term trends in N deposition and estimated its impact on plant community structure in the northern Chihuahuan desert of Central New Mexico, USA. Annual and seasonal rates of N deposition were strongly ...

Marketed livestock offtake rates are commonly low among pastoralists in the arid and semi-arid lands of east Africa. Many donors and policymakers have therefore emphasized the importance of interventions to directly address constraints that limit offtake so as to stimulate greater use of markets as a means both to increase incomes and wealth and to improve pastoralists’ capacity to manage regul...

This paper illustrates how the use of mathematical morphology can be a powerful tool for the mapping of ligneous cover in semi-arid lands. Ligneous cover plays a fundamental role in Sahel semi-arid regions since this resource is vital to the resilience of rural societies and can be used as an indicator of socio-environmental conditions. Grey tone vertical images from Sahelian villages in 1975 a...