Ramsar international wetlands of Alagol, Almagol and Ajigol with a surface of 3027 ha are located in the vast Turkmen-Sahra plains (Golestan prov.) in east of Caspian Sea and in the vicinity of the Iran-Turkmenistan political border. Flora, vegetation and habitat diversity of the wetlands were surveyed during growing seasons of 2014 and 2015. A total of 159 plant taxa belonging to 123 genera an...

Petroleum contamination of soil is a serious problem throughout the oil producer countries. Vegetation may play an important role in the biodegradation of toxic organic chemicals in soil. For petroleum compounds, the presence of rhizosphere micro flora may accelerate biodegradation of the contaminants. In a greenhouse study, petroleum contaminated soil were treated using phytoremediation . ...

The eastern part of the Pamir Mountains, located in Central Asia, is characterized by great climatic continentality and aridity. Wetlands developed in this hostile region are restricted to spring areas, terraces of shallow lakes or floodplains along rivers, and provide diversified ecosystem services e.g. as water reservoirs, refugia for rare species and pastures for domestic cattle. These ecosy...

The occurrence of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) was assessed by both morphological and molecular criteria in two salt marshes: (i) a NaCl site of the island Terschelling, Atlantic Coast, the Netherlands and (ii) a K(2)CO(3) marsh at Schreyahn, Northern Germany. The overall biodiversity of AMF, based on sequence analysis, was comparably low in roots at both sites. However, the morphological...

1 Foraging by geese has led to vegetation loss in salt marshes along the Hudson Bay coast and lesser snow geese are increasingly grazing inland freshwater marshes. We determined whether different nutrients limit the growth of forage plants in the two habitats, and whether these differences affect the nutritional quality of vegetation available to geese at La Pérouse Bay, Manitoba. 2 Results fro...

1 Vegetation mosaics of grassland and exposed soil are often the outcome of intense herbivory and represent alternate stable states, although the vegetational and soil processes that both initiate and maintain the states in response to herbivory are poorly understood. 2 The vegetation mosaic resulting from grubbing by geese was examined on the intertidal flats at La Pérouse Bay, Manitoba. Soil ...