The effects of fall and spring sheep use on cover components and recovery following a change in seasonality of grazing practices, were studied within long-term grazing treatments of threetip sagebrush (Artemisia tripartitu Rydb.) steppe on the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station near Dubois, Ida. Few significant differences existed among treatments within the litter, moss, lichen, and soil components...

Sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) in North America is an abundant native plant species that is ecologically and evolutionarily adapted to have a diverse array of biologically active chemicals. Several of these chemicals, specifically polyphenols, have antioxidant activity that may act as biomarkers of biotic or abiotic stress. This study investigated the spatial variation of antioxidant capacity, as w...

To better understand how warming, increased precipitation and their interactions influence community structure and composition, a field experiment simulating hydrothermal interactions was conducted at an annual forb dominated desert steppe in northern China over 2 years. Increased precipitation increased species richness while warming significantly decreased species richness, and their effects ...

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...

The halophytes Plantago maritima, Aster tripolium, Artemisia santonicum, Puccinellia limosa, Festuca pseudovina and Lepidium crassifolium from two different saline soils of the Hungarian steppe were examined for colonization by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). The salt aster (A. tripolium) and the sea plantain (P. maritima) were examined more thoroughly by recording root colonization paramet...

Artemisia annua L., also known as sweet wormwood, sweet annie, sweet sagewort and annual wormwood (Chinese: qngho), is a common type of wormwood that is native to temperate Asia, but naturalized throughout the world, and that belongs to the family of the Asteraceae. Currently, Artemisia annua is the source for the production of artemisinin and semi-synthetic artemisinin derivatives (including d...

Modern pollen records have been used to successfully distinguish between specific prairie types in North America. Whether the pollen records can be used to detect the occurrence of Eurasian steppe, or even to further delimit various steppe types was until now unclear. Here we characterized modern pollen assemblages of meadow steppe, typical steppe and desert steppe from eastern Eurasia along an...

Artemisia sieberi Besser occurs in many parts of the Irano-Turanian floristic region, which is mostly distributed throughout Iranian plateau, especially Iran. This study aimed to identify effect soil and topography variables on A. distribution. We used canopy cover data fit models using generalized additive (GAMs). The results showed that response pattern along with gradient clay, saturation mo...

Vegetation phenology in temperate grasslands is highly sensitive to climate change. However, it is still unclear how the timing of vegetation phenology events (especially for autumn phenology) is altered in response to climate change across different grassland types. In this study, we investigated variations of the growing season start (SOS) and end (EOS), derived from Moderate Resolution Imagi...

BACKGROUND Although community structure and species richness are known to respond to nitrogen fertilization dramatically, little is known about the mechanisms underlying specific species replacement and richness loss. In an experiment in semiarid temperate steppe of China, manipulative N addition with five treatments was conducted to evaluate the effect of N addition on the community structure ...