We present the calibration of a fast and non-destructive method to estimate aboveground plant biomass measuring vegetation cover. We double-sampled vegetation cover and aboveground biomass in the Patagonian steppe using 150 plots for shrubs and 50 plots for grasses. We performed simple linear regressions between vegetation cover and biomass for the dominant species and life forms (shrubs: Mulin...

Question: In the same landscape context – at a desert grassland-shrubland transition zone, how does subdominant plant abundance vary in microsites around dominant grasses and shrubs? Location: Sevilleta LTER, New Mexico, USA (34°21' N; 106°53' W; 1650 m a.s.l.). Methods: We compared the distribution of subdominant plants in canopy, canopy edge and interspace microsites around individual shrubs ...

Nitrogen limits plant growth in almost all terrestrial ecosystems, even in low-precipitation ecosystems. Vegetation in arid ecosystems is usually composed of two dominant plant-functional types, grasses and shrubs, which have different rooting and water acquisition patterns. These plant-functional types may respond differently to N availability because they have different strategies to absorb a...

Legumes are characterized as keeping stable nutrient supply under nutrient-limited conditions. However, few studies examined the legumes' stoichiometric advantages over other plants across various taxa in natural ecosystems. We explored differences in nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) stoichiometry of different tissue types (leaf, stem, and root) between N2-fixing legume shrubs and non-N2-fixing ...

To estimate the relative contributions of woody and herbaceous vegetation to savanna productivity, we measured the 13C/12C isotopic ratios of leaves from trees, shrubs, grasses and the surface soil carbon pool for 22 savannas in Australia, Brazil and Ghana covering the full savanna spectrum ranging from almost pure grassland to closed woodlands on all three continents. All trees and shrubs samp...

At the species level, plants can respond to climate changes by changing their leaf traits; however, there is scant information regarding the responses of morphological, physiological and anatomical traits of plant functional types (PFTs) to aridity. Herein, the leaf traits of five PFTs representing 17 plant species in temperate grasslands were examined along a large-scale aridity gradient in no...

Shallow-rooted grasses and deep-rooted shrubs dominate arid ecosystems where nitrogen is concentrated in the upper layers of the soil and water is distributed throughout. Analysis of mineral nitrogen and absorption patterns using a tracer indicated that shrubs in Patagonia absorbed nutrients from the lower, relatively nutrient-poor layers of the soil. Are they, consequently, at a competitive di...

Bush encroachment is an increase in woody plant density typically resulting in impenetrable thickets, suppressing palatable grasses and herbs. Moreover, bush encroachment is a globally observed phenomenon. Besides, increasing the density of unpalatable shrubs and trees has reduced the carrying capacity and threatens the sustainability of grazing animal production, especially in arid and semi-ar...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Salt tolerance has evolved many times independently in different plant groups. One possible explanation for this pattern is that it builds upon a general suite of stress-tolerance traits. If this is the case, then we might expect a correlation between salt tolerance and other tolerances to different environmental stresses. This association has been hypothesized for salt and ...