Degradation of plant patches is considered as one of the indices for rangeland degrading health condition. Investigating the accuracy of triple indices (infiltration, stability and soil nutrient cycle) presented by LFA method seems necessary to determine its efficiency in semi-arid areas with the least cost. This study aims to investigate the role of vegetative species and growing forms on soil...

Regardless the crop production, range and livestock management is unlikely to be possible. Considering the range production is essential for efficient and effective range management. This study aims to investigate the relationship between the rate of forage production and the effects of climate variables. For this purpose, forage yield of four range species including Artemisia sieberi, Scar...

The hypotheses about the origin of the primitive amniotic tarsus are very speculative. Early studies argued that the origin of the astragalus, one of the largest proximal bones in the tarsus of basal amniotes, was produced by either the fusion of two, three, or even four of the original tarsal bones, the intermedium, the tibiale and the proximal centralia (c4 and c3), or that the intermedium al...

Platycladus orientalis is a tree species that is highly resistant, widely adaptable, and long-lived, with lifespans of even thousands of years. To explore the mechanisms underlying these characteristics, gene expressions have been investigated at the transcriptome level by RNA-seq combined with a digital gene expression (DGE) technique. So, it is crucial to have a reliable set of reference gene...

Crop-to-wild gene flow have important evolutionary and ecological consequences and require careful consideration in conservation programs for wild genetic resources of potential use in breeding programs and in assessments of the risk of transgene escape into natural ecosystems. Using 26 microsatellites and a set of 1181 trees, we investigated the extent of introgression from the cultivated appl...

Chinese thuja (Platycladus orientalis) has a wide but fragmented distribution in China. It is an important conifer tree in reforestation and plays important roles in ecological restoration in the arid mountains of northern China. Based on high-resolution environmental data for current and future scenarios, we modeled the present and future suitable habitat for P. orientalis, evaluated the impor...