www.frontiersinecology.org © The Ecological Society of America T concept of ecosystem services – the benefits that society receives from ecosystems (Daily 1997) – has been the subject of considerable attention in recent years, but most studies to date have focused on the supply (Sala and Paruelo 1997; Havstad et al. 2007; Carpenter et al. 2009; Raudsepp-Hearne et al. 2010) and valuation (Costan...

The indirect effects of climate driven changes in animal performance result mainly from alterations in the nutritional environment. Research suggests that changes in climate would affect the quality and quantity of forage produced (5, 41). The impact of climate change on pastures and rangelands may include deterioration of pasture quality towards poorer quality subtropical C4 grasses in tempera...

Department of Mycology, Pasteur Institute of Iran, 13164 Tehran, Iran Department of Biology, Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch, Tehran, Iran Department of Mycology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, 14115-331 Tehran, Iran Department of Medicinal Plants and By-Products, Research Institute of Forest and Rangelands, 13185 Tehran, Iran Medicinal Chemistry L...

INTRODUCTION Analyzing trends of land use systems and the changes occurred overtime is an effective way of assessing the impacts of land use/land cover (LULC) changes on ecosystem function. It provides important insights for understanding the spatial patterns of land use processes. The rangelands of southern Ethiopia are adversely affected by increased human population pressure, encroachment of...

For most ecosystems, net ecosystem exchange of CO2 (NEE) varies within and among years in response to environmental change. We analyzed measurements of CO2 exchange from eight native rangeland ecosystems in the western United States (58 site-years of data) in order to determine the contributions of photosynthetic and respiratory (physiological) components of CO2 exchange to environmentally caus...

Nomadic pastoralism has thrived in Asia’s rangelands for several millennia by tracking seasonal changes in forage productivity and coping with a harsh climate. This pastoralist lifestyle, however, has come under intense transformations in recent decades due to socio-political and land use changes. One example is of the high-altitude trans-Himalayan rangelands of the Jammu and Kashmir State in n...