estimated effective precipitation (pe) in dryland areas is an essential element of water resource management. itrepresents the amount of precipitation available in the crop root zone to meet the needs of evapotranspiration. thecurrent study compared different approaches for estimating pe in different climatic zones of iran. a two-layer soil–water balance (swb) model was adopted based on the pro...

The much-publicized quest for miracle drug plants in tropical rainforests has provided compelling support for the preservationist agenda. This article questions the assumptions that underpin this claim, particularly the myth that pristine forest represents the primary repository of nature’s medicinal providence. After tracing colonial European efforts at medicinal plant discovery, intellectual ...

A low-input cropping system has been developed at Yurimiaguas, Peru, to serve as a transition technology between shifting and continuous cultivation for acid soiln of the humid tropics. Principal features are slash-andburn clearing, rotation of acid-tolerant upland rice and cowpea cultivars, maximum residue return, no tillage, and no lime or fertilizer apoiications. When yields decline as a res...

Topic 4.1 reviews the current status of the understanding on variability of tropical cyclone (TC) activity/intensity on intraseasonal to interannual time scales around the globe. Annually, approximately 80−90 TCs occur over the tropical oceans (Neumann 1993). The TC activities depend on thermodynamic parameters (e.g., sea surface temperature (SST), atmospheric stability, and mid-tropospheric mo...

Archaeologists relate increasing forager reliance on small animals and broad-spectrum resource use to environmental demographic changes in temperate regions during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 2, 29-14.7 thousand years ago (ka), MIS 1, after 14.7 ka. However, little research has examined the factors that influenced game hunting arid semi-arid tropics of eastern Africa this period. To address gap,...

Sorghum is one of the most important cereal crops in the semi-arid tropics. Several insect pests damage it. The possibility of identifying genotypes with multiple resistance to these pests and transferring the relevant genes into high-yielding varieties and hybrids has been considered as an attractive approach to reducing yield losses. A set of 12 cytoplasmic male-sterile and maintainer lines, ...

For several years the hydrological importance of the fogand cloudwater deposition to ecosystems in the tropics has been of great interest. In earlier studies carried out in the humid tropics the amount of deposited cloudwater was estimated by indirect methods based on the physical characteristics of the utilized cloudwater collector (1, 2) or on the comparison of the amounts of net and gross pr...