The impact of climate variability on the water cycle in desert ecosystems is controlled by biospheric feedback at interannual to millennial timescales. This paper describes a unique field dataset from weighing lysimeters beneath nonvegetated and vegetated systems that unequivocally demonstrates the role of vegetation dynamics in controlling water cycle response to interannual climate variabilit...

Using robust, pairwise comparisons and a global dataset, we show that nitrogen concentration per unit leaf mass for nitrogen-fixing plants (N2FP; mainly legumes plus some actinorhizal species) in nonagricultural ecosystems is universally greater (43-100%) than that for other plants (OP). This difference is maintained across Koppen climate zones and growth forms and strongest in the wet tropics ...

Determination of optimal cropping pattern is essential for arid and semiarid regions with deficit water resources. Fars province is located in the southern part of I.R. of Iran with mean annual precipitation from 50 to 1000 mm and in most parts of this province water resources for agriculture are deficit. Jahrom region with semi-arid climate is located in Fars province with mean annual rainfall...

Approximately one-third of the Earth’s land surface is considered to be arid or semiarid. The availability of water in such regions is particularly sensitive to climate variability while the demand for water is experiencing an explosive increase as populations continue to grow. The competition for available freshwater is exerting considerable pressure on the management of available water resour...

Culicoides oxystoma (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) is an important vector species, reported mainly from Asia, with high potential to transmit viral diseases affecting livestock. In Japan, many arboviruses have been isolated from C. oxystoma, suggesting it as a key player in the epidemiology of several Culicoides-borne diseases. Over the years, C. oxystoma has also been reported in the Middle East r...

BACKGROUND Understanding how grasslands are affected by a long-term increase in temperature is crucial to predict the future impact of global climate change on terrestrial ecosystems. Additionally, it is not clear how the effects of global warming on grassland productivity are going to be altered by increased N deposition and N addition. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS In-situ canopy CO(2) exc...

Desertification due to climate change and increasing drought periods is a worldwide problem for both ecology and economy. Our ability to understand how vegetation manages to survive and propagate through arid and semiarid ecosystems may be useful in the development of future strategies to prevent desertification, preserve flora-and fauna within-or even make use of scarce resources soils. In thi...

abstract soil temperature is one of the key parameters affecting most hydrologic and agricultural processes. therefore, its measurement and prediction is very crucial. so far, the statistical regression methods have been used for estimation of soil temperature for specific location encountering with lack or shortage of data. in this work, soil temperature data are estimated at six different dep...

The Chilean sclerophyllous matorral is a Mediterranean semiarid ecosystem affected by erosion, with low soil fertility, and limited by nitrogen. However, limitation of resources is even more severe for desert soils such as from the Atacama Desert, one of the most extreme arid deserts on Earth. Topsoil organic matter, nitrogen and moisture content were significantly higher in the semiarid soil c...

topography and climate are two important soil forming factors affecting genesis and clay mineralogy of soils. calcareous and gypsiferous soils are widely spread in arid and semiarid parts of iran and palygorskite is a dominant clay mineral in these soils. the objectives of the study were to: (1) determine soil genesis and classification along the climotoposequence and (2) investigate clay miner...