Shrubs and subshrubs can tolerate wider ranges of moisture stresses in both soil and air than other plant life forms, and thus represent greater nonlinearity and uncertainty in ecosystem physiology. The objectives of this paper are to model shrub/subshrub stomatal conductance by synthesizing the field leaf gas exchanges data of 24 species in China, in order to detect the differences between dec...

BACKGROUND Although semi-arid and arid regions account for about 40% of terrestrial surface of the Earth and contain approximately 10% of the global soil organic carbon stock, our understanding of soil organic carbon dynamics in these regions is limited. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS A field experiment was conducted to compare soil organic carbon dynamics between a perennial grass community ...

Fodder shrubs are highly attractive to farmers as protein supplements for their dairy cows because they require little or no cash. Nor do they require land as they are grown along boundaries, pathways, and across the contour to curb soil erosion. But like many agroforestry and natural resource management practices, fodder shrubs are “knowledge intensive”, that is, they require considerable skil...

Facilitation of tree regeneration by nurse shrubs that offer protection against large herbivores is an important driver of wood-pasture dynamics. Here we asked whether the response to facilitation by nurse shrubs depends on the grazing resistance of the protégé saplings. We experimentally tested the protective effects of the thorny Rosa rubiginosa on browsing frequency, survival, and biomass ch...

Drylands comprise 40% of Earth's land mass and are critical to food security, carbon sequestration, and threatened and endangered wildlife. Exotic weed invasions, overgrazing, energy extraction, and other factors have degraded many drylands, and this has placed an increased emphasis on dryland restoration. The increased restoration focus has generated a wealth of experience, innovations and emp...

Introduction: Potential relict hot springs have been identified on Mars and, using the Earth as an analog, Martian hot springs are postulated to be an optimal locality for recognizing preserved evidence of extraterrestrial life [1]. Distinctive organic and inorganic biomarkers are necessary to recognize preserved evidence of life in terrestrial and extraterrestrial hot spring accumulations. Hot...

This study tested the applicability of Island Biogeographic Theory to arthropod assemblages on ‘islands’ of creosotebush (Larrea tridentata) across a desert shrubland-grassland ecotone in central New Mexico, U.S.A. We assumed that herbivorous arthropod taxa that specialize on creosotebush view these shrubs as ‘islands’ of suitable habitat in a ‘sea’ of grassland, and used the Island Biogeograph...

The (13)C (12)C isotope ratios and the leaf anatomy of 18 species and varieties of Euphorbia native to the Hawaian Islands indicated that all possess C(4) photosynthesis. These species range from small prostrate coastal strand shrubs to shrubs and trees in rainforest and bog habitats. The results show that C(4) photosynthesis occurs in plants from a much wider range of habitats and life-forms t...