Spiders were sampled at Mpala Research Centre, Laikipia, Kenya by pitfall-trapping and sweep-netting from May 2001 to July 2002, at a Kenyan Long-term Exclosure Experiment. The aim was to establish species composition, checklist and examine spider responses to disturbances caused by cattle, megaherbivores (giraffe and elephants) and mesoherbivores (other ungulates) by looking at three levels of...

Rising temperatures due to climate change are pushing the thermal limits of many species, but how climate warming interacts with other anthropogenic disturbances such as land use remains poorly understood. To understand the interactive effects of climate warming and livestock grazing on water temperature in three high elevation meadow streams in the Golden Trout Wilderness, California, we measu...

the effect of exclosure on the changes of vegetation cover of rangelands of ahmad-abad region located in zanjan province has been studied during 2002 to 2006. three transects comprises of 60 fixed quadrate were establish within exclosure area and outside as well. the changes of vegetation cover were studied to made comparison between the changes of manipulated factors and soil elements using t ...

1. Herbivores influence the structure and composition of terrestrial plant communities. However, responses of plant communities to herbivory are variable and depend on environmental conditions, herbivore identity and herbivore abundance. As anthropogenic impacts continue to drive large declines in wild herbivores, understanding the context dependence of herbivore impacts on plant communities be...

The study of the exclosure effects on the vegetation changes undergrazing and non-grazing conditions in the rangeland areas has particularimportance in the rangeland improvement and revivification projects. Theresearch was accomplished in semi-steppe KhoyBilehvar area, from 1999 to2005. Vegetation cover was annually measured within fixed plots during transact.The results showed that during nine...

It has been suggested that tropical defaunation may unleash community-wide cascading effects, leading to reductions in plant diversity. However, experimental evidence establishing cause-effect relationships thereof is poor. Through a 5 year exclosure experiment, we tested the hypothesis that mammalian defaunation affects tree seedling/sapling community dynamics leading to reductions in understo...

Catherine A. Gehring,* Julie E. Wolf and Tad C. Theimer Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ 860115640, USA Research School of Biological Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia *Correspondence: E-mail: catherine.gehring@ nau.edu Abstract We examined whether terrestrial vertebrates affected the arbuscular mycorrhizal funga...

Using a decade-long exclosure experiment in Panama, we tested the hypothesis that ground-dwelling vertebrate herbivores and seed predators are crucial determinants of tropical tree diversity and abundance within the understory. Our exclosure experiment is a community-level test of the Janzen-Connell hypothesis. Therefore, we predicted that vertebrate exclusion would (a) increase plant densities...