The proliferation of woody plants in grasslands over the past 100+ years can alter carbon, nitrogen, and water cycles and influence land surface-atmosphere interactions. Although the majority of organic carbon in these ecosystems resides belowground, there is no consensus on how this change in land cover has affected soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN) pools. The degree to which d...

Density of honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) has increased in the southwest USA during the last century. Mesquite in dense thickets reduce grass production and plant species diversity. Prescribed frre is currently the least environmentally challenged and most economically sustainable option to manage mesquite. However, few mesquite over 1 year old are completely killed by frre. Moreover, the...

Satureja spicigera (Lamiaceae) grows wildly in Northwest of Iran. In this study, bioassay-guided isolation and identification of the main compounds has been reported using various chromatographic methods and comparison of their spectral data with those reported in the literature. Brine shrimp lethality and four cancerous cell lines HT29/219, Caco(2), NIH-3T3, and T47D were used for cytotoxicity...

prosopis cineraria (l.) druce (kahour in persian) is a native and indicative species of saharo-sindian region. prosopis forest in iran extends from the beach of persian gulf and oman sea in boushehr, hormozgan and sistan-baluchistan provinces to south of kerman province. in this research ecological conditions of prosopis such as floristic diversity, climate, soil and the biomass were studied. i...

Basal area growth rates for Prosopis glandulosa were quantified for contrasting landscape elements in a subtropical savanna. We hypothesized that growth rates of P. glandulosa plants (1) are a function of seasonal or annual rainfall; and (2) vary with patch type and in the rank order observed for large trees. Prosopis glandulosa growth was responsive to changes in rainfall (!0)974 cm year!1 in ...

The aerial parts of Satureja spicigera were collected at full flowering stage at Gazvin, Iran. The essential oil was isolated by hydrodistillation and analyzed by a combination of capillary GC and GC-MS. Fourteen compounds were identified, of which carvacrol (53.74%) and thymol (36.03%) were the main constituents, representing 99.12% of the total oil. The in vitro antibacterial activity of the ...

Anthropogenic impacts on North American grasslands, a highly endangered ecosystem, have led to declines of prairie dogs, a keystone species, over 98% of their historical range. While impacts of this loss on maintenance of grassland biodiversity have been widely documented, much less is known about the consequences on the supply of ecosystem services. Here we assessed the effect of prairie dogs ...