Plant diversity experiments generally find that increased diversity causes increased productivity; however, primary productivity is typically measured in the presence of a diverse food web, including pathogens, mutualists and herbivores. If food web impacts on productivity vary with plant diversity, as predicted by both theoretical and empirical studies, estimates of the effect of plant diversi...

Plant species richness of permanent grasslands has often been found to be significantly associated with productivity. Concentrations of nutrients in biomass can give further insight into these productivity-plant species richness relationships, e.g. by reflecting land use or soil characteristics. However, the consistency of such relationships across different regions has rarely been taken into a...

Plant species richness of permanent grasslands has often been found to be significantly associated with productivity. Concentrations of nutrients in biomass can give further insight into these productivity-plant species richness relationships, e.g. by reflecting land use or soil characteristics. However, the consistency of such relationships across different regions has rarely been taken into a...

Regional analysis of water use efficiency (WUE) is a relevant method for diagnosing the performance of irrigation systems in water-limited environments. In this study, we investigated the potential of FORMOSAT-2 images to provide spatial estimates of WUE over irrigated wheat crops cultivated within the semi-arid Yaqui Valley, in the northwest of Mexico. FORMOSAT-2 provided us with a unique data...

The inclusion of cellulosic ethanol in the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007 and the revised Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2) has spurred development of the first commercial scale cellulosic ethanol biorefineries. These efforts have also revived interest in the development of dedicated energy crops selected for biomass productivity and for properties that facilitate conversion o...

wheat and barley are the main crops in iran and has multiple uses. research suggests that subsistence food crops such as wheat and barley has a special place in low-income countries. however, to achieve maximum efficiency for a sustainable agriculture must be able to obtain agricultural inputs such as land. kerman province is one of the provinces with high production of these products. accordin...

The choice of a specific microhabitat represents a compromise among a number of different factors organisms use to monitor habitat suitability. Grassland vegetation structure can vary widely along environmental gradients over a relatively small area. This vegetation structure can have a large influence on habitat selection by grasshoppers (Orthoptera). However, it is not clear which vegetation ...

The information of biomass and productivity of an ecosystem is an essential to evaluate the ecosystem and its environment. This sort of data is usually retrieved from satellite data. However, the accuracy of the retrieval and the algorithms for the retrieval vary with the environment and the type of the ecosystem. In this study, the relationship between the biomass of oasis ecosystems at Fukang...

To increase crop yield per unit of scarce water requires both better cultivars and better agronomy. The challenge is to manage the crop or improve its genetic makeup to: capture more of the water supply for use in transpiration; exchange transpired water for CO2 more effectively in producing biomass; and convert more of the biomass into grain or other harvestable product. In the field, the uppe...

Wild herbivores and livestock share the majority of rangelands worldwide, yet few controlled experiments have addressed their individual, additive, and interactive impacts on ecosystem function. While ungulate herbivores generally reduce standing biomass, their effects on aboveground net primary production (ANPP) can vary by spatial and temporal context, intensity of herbivory, and herbivore id...