the invertebrate communities of the northern chilean rivers are characterised by their marked endemism andspecificity of their community structure in different basins. the river systems located in the atacama desert are endorheicand are affected by the rainy period of january-february commonly known as the “bolivian winter“. the present study isthe first report on the observations of arthropods...

Since the late 1970s, Southern Hemisphere semi-arid regions such as southern-coastal Chile, southern Africa, and southeastern Australia have experienced a drying trend in austral autumn, predominantly during April and May. The rainfall reduction coincides with a poleward expansion of the tropical belt and subtropical dry zone by around 2°-3° in the same season. This has raised questions as to w...

Since 1990 the project ‘Climate Change in the Arid Andes’ has been focusing on past climate and environmental conditions in the high mountain range of the north Chilean Andes (18 S– 28 S). The extreme aridity of this region is shown by the absence of glaciers, even at the highest altitudes above 6700 m a.s.l. More knowledge of the present climatic situation is needed to interpret the proxy data...

Among the World's most challenging environments for plant life is the Atacama Desert, an arid zone extending over 1300 km and from sea level to 2000/3000 m altitude along the southwestern Andean foothills. Plants there and in the adjacent Mediterranean zone exhibit striking adaptations, and we here address the question whether in a species-rich clade such adaptations arose in parallel, at diffe...

the arid zone encompasses land that has an imbalance between precipitation and losses through evaporation. globally, arid zones comprise large part of many countries in the mid-latitudes in both the northern and the southern hemispheres. both australia and iran are countries with a large arid zone. this negative water balance in the arid zone affects the type of land use in these countries. at ...

The invertebrate communities of the northern Chilean rivers are characterised by their marked endemism andspecificity of their community structure in different basins. The river systems located in the Atacama Desert are endorheicand are affected by the rainy period of January-February commonly known as the “Bolivian winter“. The present study isthe first report on the observations of arthropods...

Few studies have investigated the influence of water availability on plant population spatial patterns. We studied changes in the spatial patterns of Caragana stenophylla along a climatic drought gradient within the Inner Mongolian Plateau, China. We examined spatial patterns, seed density, "nurse effects" of shrubs on seedlings, transpiration rates and water use efficiency (WUE) of C. stenophy...

Stereology was used to quantify components within the kidney of honeyeater birds. Arid zone and wet zone inhabiting 'matched' body mass pairs of birds were examined. The kidney structure of the arid zone white-fronted honeyeater, Phylidonyris albifrons (16.9 g), was compared with that of the wet zone New Holland honeyeater, Phylidonyris novaehollandiae (21.9 g), and that of the arid zone spiny-...

We assembled a molecular phylogeny for the arid-zone members of the Egernia whitii species group to test Pianka's [Zoogeography and speciation of Australian desert lizards: an ecological perspective, Copeia (1972) 127-145] hypothesis that habitat specificity to the three major arid-zone vegetation communities is the primary cause of lizard speciation within the arid interior of Australia. This ...

Plant can alter reproductive strategies for adaptation to different environments. However, alterations in flowering strategies and sexual allocation for the same species growing in different environments still remain unclear. We examined the sexual reproduction parameters of Caragana stenophylla across four climatic zones from semi-arid, arid, very arid, to intensively arid zones in the Inner M...