the arid zone encompasses land that has an imbalance between precipitation and losses through evaporation. globally, arid zones comprise large part of many countries in the mid-latitudes in both the northern and the southern hemispheres. both australia and iran are countries with a large arid zone. this negative water balance in the arid zone affects the type of land use in these countries. at ...

Emergent rock outcrops are common in terrestrial ecosystems. However, little research has been conducted regarding their surface function in redistributing organic carbon and nutrient fluxes to soils nearby. Water that fell on and ran off 10 individual rock outcrops was collected in three 100 × 100 m plots within a rock desertification ecosystem, an anthropogenic forest ecosystem, and a seconda...

Ecological theory predicts that diversity decreases variability in ecosystem function. We predict that, at the landscape scale, spatial variability created by a mosaic of contrasting patches that differ in time since disturbance will decrease temporal variability in aboveground plant biomass. Using data from a multi-year study of seven grazed tallgrass prairie landscapes, each experimentally ma...

Environmental heterogeneity is a key regulator of ecological processes. Riverine floodplains are particularly heterogeneous and dynamic systems and loss of their natural environmental heterogeneity and dynamism as a consequence of human impacts constitutes their most serious threat. On river floodplains, flow and flood pulses create a shifting mosaic of channels, ponds, bars, islands, and ripar...

Droughts are increasing in severity and frequency, yet the mechanisms that strengthen ecosystem resilience to this stress remain poorly understood. Here, we test whether positive interactions in the form of a mutualism between mussels and dominant cordgrass in salt marshes enhance ecosystem resistance to and recovery from drought. Surveys spanning 250 km of southeastern US coastline reveal spat...

The central organizing theme of this paper is to discuss the dynamics of the Serengeti grassland ecosystem from the perspective of recent developments in food-web theory. The seasonal rainfall patterns that characterize the East African climate create an annually oscillating, large-scale, spatial mosaic of feeding opportunities for the larger ungulates in the Serengeti; this in turn creates a s...