Atmospheric dust loadings have a significant influence on global climate by affecting air temperatures through the absorption and scattering of solar radiation. Many dryland basins are significant sources of aeolian dust, but our knowledge of how dust emissions from these systems are affected by ephemeral wetting events is either limited or poor. This research uses synergistic data sets (Total ...

PREMISE OF THE STUDY Microsatellite markers were characterized in the extremely specialized ephemeral wetland plant species Cyperus fuscus (Cyperaceae). The markers will be used for studying population genetics in natural vs. anthropogenic habitats, on a European scale, and the role of the soil seed bank in the life cycle of this ephemeral species. METHODS AND RESULTS Twenty-one microsatellit...

Spatial and temporal variability of nitrogen fixation in Lake Valencia, Venezuela, were quantified on the basis of duplicate water samples collected from a depth of 0.5 m at 16 sites on 10 dates. The concentration of heterocysts in samples was determined and the samples were incubated with acetylene in situ. Two-way ANOVA was used to separate the variance associated with site (fixed spatial pat...

A chameleon-hash function is a hash function that involves a trapdoor the knowledge of which allows one to find arbitrary collisions in the domain of the function. In this paper, we introduce the notion of chameleon-hash functions with ephemeral trapdoors. Such hash functions feature additional, i.e., ephemeral, trapdoors which are chosen by the party computing a hash value. The holder of the m...

[1] The processes that determine which areas are strong sources of mineral aerosols are not well known. In this study we consider the role of ephemeral lakes in modulating emissions of atmospheric mineral aerosols. We focus on two ephemeral lake regions that have been identified as source regions: the zone of Chotts in Tunisia and Algeria, and Etosha Pan in Namibia. Comparisons of satellite ret...

While much of the recent literature on mechanisms has emphasized the superiority of mechanisms and mechanistic explanation over laws and nomological explanation, paradigmatic mechanisms—e.g., clocks or synapses – actually exhibit a great deal of stability in their behavior. And while mechanisms of this kind are certainly of great importance, there are many events that do not occur as a conseque...

Ephemeral disturbances are common in many systems. Often, these brief events are assumed to be a nuisance with little long-term ecological impact. We quantified the impact of the ephemeral forest disturbance caused by gypsy moth canopy defoliation on exotic plant invasion in eight hardwood forests in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, USA. Six years following the gypsy moth distur...

The forecasted increased frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events may strongly affect ecosystem structure function in the future. It is unclear how ecosystems will long run over a large spatial scale under new water cycle. This open question calls for conceptual framework as fundamental basis theoretical experimental exploration on driven by an climate envelope. To assess problem scal...

Acacia encompasses a keystone genus across the Middle Eastern and African drylands. This study assesses dynamics of populations in two ephemeral stream channels (Nahal Naomi Nahal Yael) hyper-arid Arava region following establishment dam upstream channel Yael long-term regional drought episode. The assessments were conducted at individual population levels, for period 45 years (during 1972, 199...