Land cover (LC) products, derived primarily from satellite spectral imagery, are essential inputs for environmental studies because LC is a critical driver of processes involved in hydrology, ecology, and climatology, among others. However, existing LC products each have different temporal and spatial resolutions and different LC classes that rarely provide the detail required by these studies....

We compared forest floor depth, soil organic matter, soil moisture, anaerobic mineralizable nitrogen (a measure of microbial biomass), denitrification potential, and soil/litter arthropod communities among old growth, unthinned mature stands, and thinned mature stands at nine sites (each with all three stand types) distributed among three regions of Oregon. Mineral soil measurements were restri...

The United Nations has declared the year 2002 as the «International Year of Mountains». This fact alone underlines the importance of mountain regions in various respects: ◆ Mountains make up 24% of the Earth’s total landmass ◆ All major rivers and 60–80% of the Earth’s freshwater resources originate in mountain regions ◆ Mountain forests account for 28% of the Earth’s total forested area ◆ Moun...

Two state-of-the-art Earth systemmodels (ESMs) were used in an idealized experiment to explore the role of mountains in shaping Earth’s climate system. Similar to previous studies, removing mountains from both ESMs results in the winds becoming more zonal and weaker Indian and Asian monsoon circulations. However, there are also broad changes to the Walker circulation and El Niño–Southern Oscill...

The scattered eastern African high mountains harbor a renowned and highly endemic flora, but the taxonomy and phylogeographic history of many plant groups are still insufficiently known. The high-alpine populations of the Geranium arabicum/kilimandscharicum complex present intricate morphological variation and have recently been suggested to comprise two new endemic taxa. Here we aim to contrib...

The authors begin the paper with the question `Do mountains exist?' They show that providing an answer to this question is surprisingly difficult and that the answer that one gives depends on the context in which the question is posed. Mountains clearly exist as real correlates of everyday human thought and action, and they form the archetype for geographic objects. Yet individual mountains lac...

in other to evaluate grain yield, rate and effective grain filling period of four barley (hordeum vulgaris l.) cultivars in different planting dates, a factorial experiment based on a randomized complete block design was conducted in the islamic azad university of ardabil research station in 2009. the treatments applied were: three levels of different planting dates (september, 23; october, 16 ...

When attempts to eradicate an introduced pest species fail and it becomes established, barrier zones are often used to stop or to slow the spread of the population into uninfested areas. The U.S. Forest Service is currently conducting a Slow-the-Spread (STS) pilot project to evaluate the feasibility of slowing the spread of the gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar L.) in several areas along the populat...

The socio-ecological system dominated by pastureland in the Asteroussia Mountains (Crete, Greece) was analyzed over a long time interval (1945–2010) to identify the most relevant system’s characteristics and changes. Vegetation cover and land-uses have been quantified by analyzing aerial photographs exploring the whole study period. Soil characteristics have been assessed by carrying out an ext...