Livestock production by transhumance rearing systems is the major land use and a source of livelihood in most areas of the arid, semiarid, and arid temperate agro-ecological zones of Asia. It is perhaps the best way of exploiting these pastures economically. Lack of feed is the major constraint to improving livestock production during winter and early spring, as the temperatures are extremely l...

The aim of this paper is to evaluate seed bank density and composition along a semi-arid gypsum gradient in Central Spain. Seed bank density was relatively high (16,214 seed/m) with a very clumped spatial distribution. Landform and microslope were the best predictors for seed density, indicating that density can be at least partly interpreted as a result of the physical processes regulating sec...

Climate change is generally predicted to increase net primary production, which could lead to additional C input to soil. In arid central Asia, precipitation has increased and is predicted to increase further. To assess the combined effects of these changes on soil CO2 efflux in arid land, a two factorial manipulation experiment in the shrubland of an arid region in northwest China was conducte...

Ap Applicati tions ons in in Pl Plant t Scien Sciences ces Several Australian arid-zone acacias are threatened by habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation resulting from agricultural activities and exotic herbivores (Morton et al., 1995), although others, including Acacia ligulata A. Cunn. ex Benth., are thriving. Two long-lived and potentially clonal species facing a variety of potential t...

Abstract This study evaluates the impact of climate change (CC) on runoff and hydrological drought trends in Hablehroud river basin central Iran. We used a daily time series minimum temperature (Tmin), maximum (Tmax), precipitation (PCP) for baseline period (1982–2005) analysis. For future projections, we output 23 CMIP5 GCMs two scenarios, RCP 4.5 8.5; then, PCP, Tmin, Tmax were projected (202...

Nitrogen (N) is, after water, the most limiting resource in semiarid ecosystems. However, knowledge on the N cycling ability of semiarid woody plants is still very rudimentary. This study analyzed the seasonal change in the N concentrations and pools of the leaves and woody organs of two species of semiarid sub-shrubs with contrasting leaf habit. The ability of both species to uptake, remobiliz...

The complementary relationship (CR) of evapotranspiration allows the estimation of the actual evapotranspiration rate (ETa) of the land surface using only routine meteorological data, which is of great importance in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) due to its sparse observation network. With the highest in situ automatic climate observation system in a typical semiarid alpine steppe region of the TP, t...

precipitation and air temperature data, only, are often recorded at meteorological stations, with radiation beingmeasured at very few weather stations, especially in developing countries. therefore there arises a need for suitablemodels to estimate solar radiation for a completion of data sets. this paper is about an evaluation of eight models foran estimation of daily solar radiation (q) from ...