isfahan province is located in the center of iran and has arid and semi-arid climate. in recent years, water shortage has increased in this region and has affected crop production. wheat is one of the most important crops of the province. in the present research, an index (dei) has been developed for drought evaluation using long term climatic data through application of principle components an...

Knowledge about the long-term influences of climate change on the amount of potential carbon (C) sequestration in forest ecosystems, including age-related dynamics, remains unclear. This study used two similar age-sequences of black locust forests (Robinia pseudoacacia L.) in the semi-arid and semi-humid zones of China's Loess Plateau to assess the variation in C stocks and age-related dynamics...

Understanding nitrous oxide (N2O) fluxes from agricultural soils in semi-arid regions is required to better understand global terrestrial N2O losses. Nitrous oxide fluxes were measured from three rain-fed, cropped soils in a semi-arid region of south-western Australia on a sub-daily basis from 1995 to 2014 using automated chambers. Western Australia’s grain-belt includes 7 million hectares of a...

Castor bean is one of the crops with potential to provide raw material for production of oils for biodiesel. This species possess adaptive mechanisms for maintaining the water status when subjected to drought stress. A better understanding these mechanisms under field conditions can unravel the survival strategies used by this species. This study aimed to compare the physiological adaptations o...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS The timing of flowering and summer dormancy induction plays a central role in the adaptation of Mediterranean geophytes to changes in the length of the growth season along rainfall gradients. Our aim was to analyse the role of the variation in the responses of flowering and summer dormancy to vernalization, daylength and growth temperature for the adaptation of Poa bulbosa, ...

The Garole is the only known prolific sheep breed in India and is a native of Sunderban, the swampy delta region of West Bengal [1]. Malpura is a popular mutton-type breed of semi-arid tropical region of India. These sheep are known for their hardiness and adaptability to the local environment but prolificacy is low with ewes usually producing single lambs. Increasing prolificacy of the Malpura...

A brief analysis on the distribution range of some of the species dominating in the arid and extra arid regions of North Africa and Arabian Peninsula is presented. These species are belonging to three phytogeographical categories namely: Saharo-Sindian, Sudano-Deccanian and Tropical African-Indian elements. Species included for this study are either disjunct or they have a wider distribution, s...

Goji (fruits of Lycium barbarum L. and L. chinense Mill.) has been used in China as food and medicine for millennia, and globally has been consumed increasingly as a healthy food. Ningxia, with a semi-arid climate, always had the reputation of producing best goji quality (daodi area). Recently, the increasing market demand pushed the cultivation into new regions with different climates. We ther...

Climate change and degradation of natural resources pose daunting challenges in arid semi-arid rangelands southern Mediterranean region. Overcoming these requires considerable man...