Our objective was to determine if long-term increases in precipitation can maintain grasslands susceptible to desertification, and initiate a reversal of historic regime shifts on desertified shrublands. Perennial grass production and species richness in a multi-year wet period were hypothesized to be greater than expected based on precipitation in a sequence of dry years. These responses were ...

Maintenance and restoration of grasslands, heathlands, and shrublands are high priorities for conservation due to their diversity of uncommon species and assemblages and their ongoing decline resulting from invasion by shrubs and trees. Much of the literature and management concerning openlands emphasizes burning to control woody growth, based on the interpretation that these habitats and their...

The use of drones for vegetation monitoring allows the acquisition large amounts high spatial resolution data in a simple and fast way. In this study, we evaluated accuracy cover estimation by Mediterranean semi-arid shrublands (Sierra de Filabres; Almería; southern Spain) after prescribed burns (2 years). We compared drone-based estimates with those based on traditional sampling ninety-six 1 m...

In seasonally dry environments, the amount of water held in living plant tissue—live fuel moisture (LFM)—is central to vegetation flammability. LFM-driven changes wildfire size and frequency are particularly important throughout southern California shrublands, which typically produce intense, rapidly spreading wildfires. However, relationship between spatiotemporal variation LFM resulting long-...

Background – Shrublands are receiving increasing attention because of climate change. However, knowledge about biomass allocation shrublands at the community level and how this is regulated by limited availability but critical for accurately estimating carbon stocks predicting global cycles. Methods We sampled 50 typical along a gradient in China investigated shrubland effect on allocation. Shr...

Abstract Plant-derived carbon (C) inputs via foliar litter, root litter and exudates are key drivers of soil organic C stocks. However, the responses these three input pathways to climate warming have rarely been studied in alpine shrublands. By employing a 3-year experiment (increased by 1.3 °C), we investigated effects on relative contributions from Sibiraea angustata, dominant shrub species ...