Water availability, which enables plant growth and animal activity, regulates dryland ecosystem function. In hyper-arid ecosystems, rain cannot support vascular growth. Therefore, vegetation is restricted to the lower topography, where runoff accumulates. Typically, food resources originating from areas of dense are dispersed across desert floor, enabling life in lacking However, certain region...

INTRODUCTION Large dead wood or coarse woody debris (CWD) with a diameter >10 cm is an important resource for many arthropods and other animals that use it for food, oviposition sites, protection from environmental extremes, and foraging habitat (Elton 1966, Grove 2002b, Harmon and others 1986). Over 400 species of insects are known to use woody debris as a food resource in the Southeastern Uni...

We have screened more than 110 representatives of the different taxa of terrestrial arthropods for methane production in order to obtain additional information about the origins of biogenic methane. Methanogenic bacteria occur in the hindguts of nearly all tropical representatives of millipedes (Diplopoda), cockroaches (Blattaria), termites (Isoptera), and scarab beetles (Scarabaeidae), while s...