In arid regions, unpredictable rainfall patterns and extreme temperature variation occurs; this poses severe constraints on reproduction in small mammals. In the present study, the gonad morphometrics, gonadal histology and endocrine profiles of the female Lesser Egyptian jerboas (Jaculus jaculus) were studied over one year in a wild population from central Saudi Arabia. An unusual rainfall pattern

The relationship between community species diversity and functional diversity (SFDR) was suggested to reflect the degree of overlap in species functions and highlight the effects of environmental filters on community composition. Using a novel approach, categorizing individual plants into functional groups according to their plant biomass production (function level) and regardless of their taxonomic

Dew water plays an important role in supporting biological processes in desert ecosystems. Although some mechanisms underlying how plants survive in water-limited environments have been investigated, the water-use strategies of most desert plants remain unclear. We investigated whether foliar uptake of dew water occurs in four dominant shrub species (Artemisia ordosica, Hedysarum mongolicum, Salix

Despite the abundance of cacti in the Sonoran Desert, most research focuses on population dynamics and physiology. Relatively little is known about their decomposition dynamics. A better understanding of cactus decomposition is important, considering the number of threatened and endangered cactus species. We measured mass, water, nutrient, and structural chemistry over one year of decomposition of

Specific guidelines are needed to overcome dichotomous classifications of lands into degraded or not for leveraging the Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) concept. Overlooking degrading lands or those at risk of degradation can block LDN. Therefore, this paper proposes a detailed land classification method, and complements LDN with an indicator α (wildfires, landslides and insights on aridity). Indicator

Prairie dogs are a keystone species that provide ecosystem services in endangered grasslands in North America. They have been extirpated throughout their range due to sylvatic plague, habitat fragmentation, lethal control, and drought. There are competing drivers of biodiversity between herbivorous rodents and drought in semi-arid grasslands. Therefore, prairie dogs may be unable to provide the ecosystem

Climate change has a profound impact on ecosystem stability. Recent studies still have insufficient understanding of the response of vegetation to climate change, especially the response of vegetation to short-term climate anomalies. Based on normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and the meteorological data, this study conducted a quantitative assessment of the ecosystem resilience and resistance

There is limited information about the importance of seed origin, thermoperiod, and photoperiod on low water potential tolerance during seed germination of habitat-indifferent plants, which grow well in saline and non-saline habitats. This study examined the effects of seed provenance, water potential, thermoperiod, photoperiod, and their interactions on seed germination of the multipurpose exotic

We analyzed the influence of land use and water physical-chemical characteristics on the trait composition of benthic macroinvertebrates in arid-land streams of North-East Algeria. Macroinvertebrates were sampled in the spring season of 2015, 2017 and 2018 at 36 sampling sites distributed along 5 streams of the Belezma biosphere reserve. Samples were taken from the various substratum types using a

Free-living diazotrophs are important contributors of reduced N forms in drylands. They can be affected by soil microhabitat formed by plant species, soil depth, soil properties, and seasonality in drylands. We evaluated the effect of soil microhabitat, soil depth, and seasonality on the free-living diazotrophs in a Mexican tropical dryland, through the analysis of the number of nifH genes in soil

1. The Indian Thar Desert has lost much of its grasslands over the last few decades, mainly due to land-use change from pastoralism to agriculture. Expanding croplands and intensifying grazing pressures are popularly hypothesized to be the major drivers of biodiversity loss in the region. Our study aims to investigate the effects of contemporary land-use change on bird communities of the Western Thar

Positive interactions between nurse plants and their facilitated species are most notable in dry/high-elevation habitats. Plants that modify limiting resources or constraining variables creating an even stronger positive impact on the community are considered ecosystem engineers. Ziziphus lotus, a dominant deep-rooted shrub of arid/semi-arid Mediterranean habitats, can create fertile islets; most likely

The late dry season is a period when forage resources become limited in some African savannas that can induce a strong demographic bottleneck in herbivore populations with limited access to resource heterogeneity. This study determined forage quality and quantity between wetlands and drylands habitats during the late dry season. We subjectively sampled forage characteristics in four habitat types around

In desert ecosystems, some argue that primary productivity controls vertebrate populations while others contend that predators' top-down effects are under-appreciated. While seldom used to explain population dynamics in desert environments, the exploitation ecosystems hypothesis (EEH) unites bottom-up and top-down processes by conceptualizing how the biomass of plants and consumers vary along spatial

Quantification of fine fraction and nutrient inputs by dust deposition is vital to understand the biogeochemical cycling and its effect on vegetation succession in arid and semiarid regions. The Otindag Desert of China is usually regarded as a dust source area, and little is known about its sink function by dust deposition. Dust and topsoil sampling and nutrient analyses were conducted to determine

Globally, desertification is a challenging issue today. As per United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), it has been altering the quality of life of several people across the world. The study deals with temporal monitoring and mapping land degradation and desertification over the Thar Desert, which occupies the northwestern part of Rajasthan, India, with arid climatic conditions

Genetic diversity is fundamental for biodiversity, providing an adaptive potential to environmental fluctuations and population stability. This empirical evidence was obtained by comparing the genetic diversity among multiple populations. However, it is controversial whether levels of genetic diversity are related to population stability in inter-specific comparisons, especially among common species

Rural communities throughout sub-Sahara Africa are hampered by unequal access to water resources, economic markets, and transportation. Further, development programs do not always provide uniform access to water supply, especially in water scarce regions. With a growing concern over the limited supply of ecosystem services, the need to understand how the complex realities of water use is affected by

Climate change and desertification continue to threaten livelihoods in drylands across the globe. This study explores the relative importance of Sustainable Livelihoods Framework components in explaining variation in the adaptive capacity of agricultural households in three districts in the drylands of south Punjab, Pakistan, and to identify spatial patterns in adaptive capacity distribution. Questionnaire

Despite satellite imagery is being used to identify suitable areas for desert locust, there is a lack of automatized and operational procedures in Near Real Time (NRT). The aim of this study was to assess the capacity of Soil Moisture Near Real Time Neural Network Level 2 product (MIR_SMNRT2) from the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity satellite (SMOS) to predict nymphs of desert locust. We used soil

Increasing global temperatures and frequency of low precipitation have made drought a major natural disaster around the world. Drought is a major threat to China's food security. Thus, the recent abnormal characteristics of Chinese droughts warrant further study. We therefore examined daily air temperature and precipitation from 1961 to 2014 at 572 Chinese meteorological stations. We used an improved

Human activities such as livestock raising have modified the Mexican High Plateau in a land-use mosaic. We assessed the response of dung beetles to three livestock management systems with different intensities of cattle rearing, which determines their respective vegetation coverage. We found significant differences in species diversity in the three systems, due mainly to Euoniticellus intermedius and

The semiarid region of Northeast Brazil is characterized by recurrent drought episodes. The magnitude of drought events may be assessed using standardized climate indices (SCIs) based on hydrometeorological variables, including precipitation, evapotranspiration, soil moisture, and streamflow. Drought monitoring may be improved using the concept of drought propagation, which considers the existing link

Since the 1990s Namibia's Conservancies have been depicted as one of the most successful examples of Community Conservation. The growth in game numbers caused by the conservation programme, however, has led to an increase in Human-Wildlife Conflict (HWC) incidents. These include damages to crops and to infrastructure, the killing of livestock, attacks on humans, and higher levels of psychological stress

Understanding spatio-temporal patterns of animal-vehicle collisions is a crucial step for the implementation of efficient mitigation measures of this worldwide threat against biodiversity. In this study we investigated vertebrate road-kills in a pre-Saharan area in southern Tunisia. In particular, we assessed how road mortality varied according to land cover and season. From February 2019 to January

Pallas's cats range across Central Asia and commonly consume small mammals. Most studies on Pallas's cats' diets found that they strongly selected particular prey species, such as pika (Ochotona spp.). Pika occurrence in Pallas's cat diet was disproportionately high compared to availability in Central Mongolia. We conducted research into Pallas's cat ecology in Khalzan Soum, Sukhbaatar Aimag since

Shrub encroachment into arid grasslands occurs globally with the potential to affect vertebrates and their interactions. In the Chihuahuan Desert of southern New Mexico, shrub encroachment has prompted intensive efforts by land management agencies to remove shrubs and restore historical grassland habitats. We asked if restoration actions involving shrub removal affected dynamics of intraguild predation

In this study, an assessment of similarity relationships across runoff measurements at various spatial scales was carried in a typical Sahelian landscape, under semi-arid climate in northern Burkina Faso (west African Sahel). The scales of observations considered are the plot scale (1 m2, 50 m2, 150 m2) and the sub-catchment scale (6.1 ha, 33.8 ha), with various soil surface conditions and slopes.

We evaluated the fire severity and recovery process of the Latroon dry forest in Jordan following the 2003 fire. A series of multi-temporal Landsat-ETM + data and the delta normalized burn ratio (dNBR) were used to map the fire severity immediately following the fire and 1,5,9,13 and 17 years after. In addition, combined field morpho-physiological measurements, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) were also

Perennial plants of desert regions can be categorized as short-, moderate-, or long-lived. For long-lived species, the typical range of adult life spans is often poorly known, as well as how reproductive effort is apportioned across years. Ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens), a large shrub of the Chihuahuan and Sonoran Deserts, is considered long-lived and flowers spectacularly, but few data exist on these

Rangelands are complex social-ecological systems (SES) commonly used to support ranching and other agrarian livelihoods. Common to Earth's drylands, rangelands are susceptible to drought, desertification, and land degradation from both climatic and human activities. In the arid Americas, ranching communities are often located in watersheds and rely on local riparian resources (e.g. surface- and ground-water)

Prosopis pallida (algarrobo) is a highly adapted species to extremely dry and wet conditions. Its geographic distribution at both sides of the Pacific Ocean is associated with its plastic response to El Niño event, an extreme climate event that changes precipitation regimes. In this review, we summarized the current knowledge of this versatile species based on scientific literature. Our analysis conducted

Predicting the impact of overgrazing on soil properties, and thus on plant succession, in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) is one of the primary technical bottlenecks in alpine meadow conservation. Four degradation intensities, namely D1: light degradation, D2: moderate degradation, D3: high degradation, and a non-degraded site as the control (CK), were identified. The soil properties and plant community

Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.) presence in the Great Basin is associated with an increase in fire frequency and size, likely due to increased spatial continuity of fine fuel biomass. Measurements of the extent and cover of cheatgrass are steadily improving, but the strength of the relationship between cover and aboveground biomass (AGB) is unclear. An allometric equation that can reliably convert

The Euphrates poplar (Populus euphratica), can be found in the arid regions of the Negev highlands, the Judean desert, and the northern Arava in a number of clustered populations located near permanent water sources. The trees' distribution in the desert regions is not continuous, being disconnected from its major area of distribution along the Jordan River, where its distribution is uninterrupted

There is strong empirical evidence on the importance of the spatial pattern of vegetation in dryland hydrologic and geomorphologic dynamics. However, changes in vegetation cover and spatial pattern are often linked, making it difficult to disentangle and assess their independent hydro-geomorphologic roles. We used synthetic sponges placed on the soil surface to mimic the aboveground structure of vegetation

This study aims at investigating the spatial and temporal variability of the seasonal rainfall over Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, relying on rainfall data taken from gridded data of four gauge stations for 35 years. Moreover, this study determines the teleconnection between the seasonal rainfall and equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature (El Niño SST) over El Arish and Wadi Watir. Due to non-stationary

We studied foraging patterns of Raramuri Criollo (heritage breed, “RC”) and Angus x Hereford (commercial beef breed, “AH”) cows in relation to ambient heat and body temperature during summer (2016 and 2017) and winter (2017 and 2018) in the Chihuahuan Desert. Cows of each breed grazed separately in two adjacent pastures (~1100 ha) in a crossover design for four weeks in each season/year. Animals were

The recent increase of irrigation practices in forage cactus crops makes appropriate irrigation management criteria necessary. In this study, the morphological and yield characteristics of forage cactus cultivars were evaluated for some soil-based irrigation management criteria. Five experiments were carried out simultaneously under semiarid conditions in a randomized block design, with forage cactus

Soil respiration (SR) is an important process and the largest source of carbon cycle of terrestrial ecosystems, which has a significant impact on global climate and environmental changes. The fluctuation of temperature and precipitation caused by climate change is a driving force for the dynamic change of SR. Therefore, we established the field experiment with 5 levels of precipitation by rainout shelters

Burrow system has been proven to be an effective strategy to avoid the interference of adverse circumstances on nesting animals inhabiting the unsuitable environment. To verify the ecological function of burrows in Phrynocephalus przewalskii, 20 sets of thermal characteristics including bottom temperature of real and manmade burrow, and sand surface temperature at burrow entrance were recorded every

Soil respiration is a critical pathway in the carbon cycle, accounting for a major flux of carbon from the biosphere to the atmosphere. However, controls over soil respiration are poorly understood in drylands. Fire is prevalent in many drylands, potentially causing both direct and indirect changes in soil respiration through altering vegetation patterns, soil organic matter, and microclimate. We investigated

Many rangelands in the southwestern United States have experienced increased shrub cover and lower and more variable forage resources during the past 100 years. Criollo cattle are descendants of cattle brought to the Americas by European explorers that spread throughout North and South America. These cattle were displaced in many areas as British breeds became popular, but isolated populations remained

Domestic wood collection affects plant communities through constant biomass removal. We assessed the effects of wood collection for firewood and fence construction on tree community structure in a seasonally dry tropical forest in Brazil. We described the harvest patterns of wood products. Further, we evaluated the effects of rainfall levels and wood collection on tree community structure. Most wood

Fungus-growing termites have long been considered as ecosystem engineers for the modifications they make to the soil, through their ability to concentrate nutrients and create patches of fertile land. However, few studies have highlighted the degree to which, in building their mounds, they are able to modify the grain-size distributions of the sediments and soils in their surroundings. Therefore, the

Dryland agriculture has extensive impacts on surrounding ecosystems through its unintentional provision of food and water resources to local wildlife. We analyzed the response of a predator community of jackals, wolves and foxes to land-management choices, and how that response in turn affects native gazelles and Acacia vegetation in the Arava Valley of Israel. This hyperarid region is characterized

Pinyon jays (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus) are experiencing range wide population declines primarily in response to habitat degradation. More studies examining pinyon jay nest site selection in pinyon-juniper woodlands would be helpful in determining potential habitat management prescriptions. Therefore, we conducted a nest site selection study in pinyon jay breeding habitat in central New Mexico. We

Feral horse (Equus ferus caballus) grazing can alter arid shrubland habitat in the western United States to the detriment of sympatric wildlife species, including the greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus). To date, studies of horse-influenced habitat alteration have only occurred in a few locations and have infrequently represented gradients of horse use. We investigated whether greater sage-grouse

Co-management requires two or more organizations that collectively manage natural capital. This study aimed to explore the function of social capital in the cycle of establishing co-management in southeastern Iranian rural communities (who participated in the Rehabilitation of Forest Landscapes and Degraded Land (RFLDL) project). Since measuring social capital is important and difficult, and one of

Partial migration occurs when a population of animals contains both migratory and resident individuals. Following anthropogenic changes, the population of Dead Sea Sparrows (Passer moabiticus) in Israel, experienced a rapid expansion of its breeding range, from the Dead Sea northward along the Great Rift Valley. Appropriate climatic conditions, increased water availability and suitable trees to construct

The relationship between nature and culture is conceived as a dialogue, not as a dichotomy. Sociocultural and ecological systems are linked, in which language encodes the foundations of collective knowledge in a way that is often untranslatable but inextricably links its speakers to their landscape and each other. We describe the social practices and ethnotaxonomic knowledge of traditional people living