The densely populated Indian Thar Desert, which extends from India to Pakistan, is the 18th largest in the world. Diurnal variation in temperature, erratic precipitation, poor soil texture, and saline tracts are serious constraints for the livelihood of humans. The Indian Thar Desert also has significant natural resources that can be harnessed to mitigate constraints and to support life of its ...

Water is the most limiting factor in deserts, yet researchers have very different emphases on the relative importance of water, depending on the organisms that they study. For example, soil moisture is considered the most critical factor for recruitment of desert succulent plants, and numerous studies have linked plant distribution patterns with soil texture, rainfall, and soil moisture. By com...

Robert J. Warren II*, Itamar Giladi and Mark A. Bradford Department of Biology SUNY Buffalo State, 1300 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14222, USA; Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede Boqer Campus, 84990 Midreshet Ben-Gurion, Israel; and School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven,...

The Namib Desert in southwest Africa is hyperarid and composed of distinct microbial communities affected by a longitudinal aridity gradient. Here, we report four soil metaviromes from the Namib Desert, assessed using deep sequencing of metavirome libraries prepared from DNA extracted from gravel plain surface soils.

This paper highlights the Thar Desert and its ecosystem. The work reviews and presents the natural condition of the Thar Desert within Rajasthan State. The diversity of the vegetation and of higher animals is discussed on the basis of earlier works and surveys. Major problems and conservation issues are presented along with their possible solutions. Recommendations are made for the protection o...

We examined the effects of increased transpiration demand on xylem hydraulic conductivity and vulnerability to cavitation of mature ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Laws.) by comparing trees growing in contrasting climates. Previous studies determined that trees growing in warm and dry sites (desert) had half the leaf/sapwood area ratio (A(L)/A(S)) and more than twice the transpiration rate of t...

Chinese academy of sciences) SMOS is a satellite dedicated to measuring soil moisture(SM) and sea surface salinity (SSS) continuously at a resolution around 50km from space for the first time in the history. It is also the first spaceborne mission that carries a synthetic aperture radiometer at L band. CAL/VAL is a big challenge to this kind of mission considering its frequency, resolution scal...

Background Compared with other general energy crops, microalgae are more compatible with desert conditions. In addition, microalgae cultivated in desert regions can be used to develop biodiesel. Therefore, screening oil-rich microalgae, and researching the algae growth, CO2 fixation and oil yield in desert areas not only effectively utilize the idle desertification lands and other resources, bu...

abstract soil organic matter and its components are important factors in formation and stability of aggregates and subsequently soil structure. however data regarding organic matter distribution in soil aggregates is scarce, particularly in arid soils of central iran. the objective of this study was to investigate the distribution of organic carbon (oc), total nitrogen (tn), and carbohydrates i...

Plants are often subjected to periods of soil and atmospheric water deficit during their life cycle. The frequency of such phenomena is likely to increase in the future even outside today's arid/semi-arid regions. Plant responses to water scarcity are complex, involving deleterious and/or adaptive changes, and under field conditions these responses can be synergistically or antagonistically mod...