a r t i c l e i n f o Land degradation in drylands is one of the major environmental issues of the 21st century particularly due to its impact on world food security and environmental quality. Climate change, shifts in vegetation composition, accelerated soil erosion processes, and disturbances have rendered these landscapes susceptible to rapid degradation that has important feedbacks on regio...

Dryland rivers are renowned for their periods of ‘boom’ related to the episodic floods that extend over vast floodplains and fuel incredible production, and periods of ‘bust’ where the extensive channel network is restricted to the permanent refugial waterholes. Many of these 15 river systems are unregulated by dams but are under increasing pressure, especially from water abstraction and overla...

Despite their large areas and potential importance as methane sinks, the role of methane-oxidizing bacteria (MOB) in native woodland soils is poorly understood. These environments are increasingly being altered by anthropogenic disturbances, which potentially alter ecosystem service provision. Dryland salinity is one such disturbance and is becoming increasingly prevalent in Australian soils. W...

[1] In dryland ecosystems, understanding the effects of heterogeneity in soil moisture and geophysical properties on vegetation structure and dynamics poses a suite of challenging research questions. Heterogeneity in soil depth can affect resource availability and the subsequent organization of woody vegetation, while spatiotemporal variation in soil moisture can reveal important ecohydrologica...

Variation in angiosperm vessel diameter is of major functional significance. In the light of recent models predicting optimal vessel taper given resistance imposed by conductive path length, we tested the prediction that plant size should predict vessel diameter, with dryland plants having narrower vessels for their stem sizes. We assembled a comparative dataset including vessel and stem diamet...