The invasive grass Bromus tectorum fuels fires, displaces native species, and reduces wildlife habitat on sagebrush steppe throughout the western United States. Recently, it has spread from the Great Basin Desert into higher elevations of the eastern Sierra Nevada, where it coexists with natives but has not yet altered fire regimes. We evaluated effects of a springtime water pulse (+10 mm) in a...

We hypothesized that cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum), an exotic invasive annual, may alter soil nitrogen availability. In the Honey Lake Valley of northeastern, California, we have monitored soil and vegetation along a chronosequence of cheatgrass invasion. In 2007, we measured total C, total N, and N in tissue of cheatgrass, winterfat (Krascheninnikovia lanata), freckled milkvetch (Astragalus len...

We reared Oedaleus asiaticus grasshoppers under four different single-plant diets to examine the relationships among diet, performance, stress, and transcription patterns. Grasshoppers fed only Artemisia frigida (Asteraceae) were stressed, as indicated by their lower growth, size, development, and survival, in comparison to grasshoppers fed on any of three grasses, Cleistogenes squarrosa, Leymu...

In arid ecosystems, variation in precipitation causes broad-scale spatial heterogeneity in soil moisture, but differences in soil texture, development, and plant cover can also create substantial local soil moisture heterogeneity. The boundary between inland desert sand dunes and adjacent desert habitats exhibits abrupt changes in soil and vegetation characteristics that may be associated with ...

The vegetation of the Bashkiria National Park is one basic components for studying flora and Republic Bashkortostan. Accounting protection such plant biodiversity important their conservation study. Based on results geobotanical surveys in spring-summer period 2020, 270 species medicinal plants belonging to 61 families were identified, which majority terms number are represented by Asteraceae, ...