karizes (qanat) prepare a part of fresh water sources in main desert of iran. the arid regions in deserts have isolated suitable aquatic habitats as strong barriers, thus only a few places with surface waters have remained accessible for water- related insects. this paper represents the results of only study on dragonfly species of karizes. we identified 10 species of typical desert dragonflies...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Organismal evolution tends to be closely associated with ecological conditions. However, the extent to which this association constrains adaptation or diversification into new habitats remains unclear. We studied habitat evolution in the hyper-diverse angiosperm clade Saxifragales. METHODS We used species-level phylogenies for approx. 950 species to analyse the evolution o...

Animals often move in a variety of complex habitats and they often exhibit morphological variation that can be explained, at least in part, by the habitat in which they live. The habitats of animals are often generally categorised based on dominant structures. Although this scheme can be fruitful, it ignores the intricacies of the microhabitat and the actual habitat utilisation of an animal. Th...

Animal species are seldom distributed evenly at either local or larger spatial scales, and instead tend to aggregate in sites that meet their resource requirements and maximise fitness. This tendency is likely to be especially marked in arid regions where species could be expected to concentrate at resource-rich oases. In this study, we first test the hypothesis that productive riparian sites i...

Ecological data on the uncommonly encountered terrestrial gecko Heteronotia binoei are presented and discussed. Although Heteronotia is widespread in Australia occurring in many different habitats, it is rarely found in semipristine desert habitats. Heteronotia is composed of a complex of both sexual and asexual populations which may help explain its rarity. Sex ratio is biased towards females....

The sand fly Phlebotomus papatasi Scopoli, 1786, the vector of Leishmania major Yakimoff et Schokhor, 1914, is found in desert areas where sugars are scarce but also in habitats that abound in sugar sources. The sand flies require sugar meals from plant sources for their energy requirements and to hydrolyze these complex sugars, they need a repertoire of glycosidases. We presumed that there are...

Allometric models are useful for assessment of aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) and aboveground biomass (AGB) of forests and shrubs, and are widely implemented in forest inventory and management. Multiple forms of allometric models have been used to estimate vegetation carbon storage for desert shrubland, but their validity for biomass estimation has not been tested at a region scale...

The spatial and temporal structure of spider communities was studied in the clay semi-desert of the north-western Caspian Lowland, western Kazakhstan (49°23' N, 46°47' E). The soils and vegetation are complex, being composed of a mosaic of desert and steppe plant communities. Besides the native associations, there are plantations of different tree species. The ground-dwelling spider assemblages...

sand dune habitats in desert regions have harsh conditions for plant establishment and survival. ammodendron persicum, an psamophyte shrub plant belongs to leguminosae family, which grows over the desert sand dunes of zirkohgaen, gezik and khash  along east part of iran. recognizing the adaptive features of the plant species may help towards its conservation and introducing to other sand dune h...

In arid ecosystems, variation in precipitation causes broad-scale spatial heterogeneity in soil moisture, but differences in soil texture, development, and plant cover can also create substantial local soil moisture heterogeneity. The boundary between inland desert sand dunes and adjacent desert habitats exhibits abrupt changes in soil and vegetation characteristics that may be associated with ...