Land use change is a considerable representation of mutual effect between human and natural activities. Northern Shanxi located in the northern agro pastoral ecotone, which land pattern changes violently. This paper focuses on dynamic characteristics cultivated grassland ecotone from 2000 to 2015, explores main driving factors their change. It can provide support for planning management relevan...

Monitoring the dynamics of the circumpolar boreal forest (taiga) and Arctic tundra boundary is important for understanding the causes and consequences of changes observed in these areas. This ecotone, the world’s largest, stretches for over 13,400 km and marks the transition between the northern limits of forests and the southern margin of the tundra. Because of the inaccessibility and large ex...

Changes in the timberline ecotone vegetation of Nanda Devi National Park (NDNP) was studied over a period of 30 years (1980–2010). Our study based on remote sensing analysis of Landsat MSS and TM images suggests no geographical shift in the upper limit of timberline, while the subalpine forest’s canopy has increased substantially. Decrease in heterogeneous reflectance pattern near upper boundar...

The elevational and latitudinal diversity patterns of microbial taxa have attracted great attention in the past decade. Recently, the distribution of functional attributes has been in the spotlight. Here, we report a study profiling soil microbial communities along an elevation gradient (500-2200 m) on Changbai Mountain. Using a comprehensive functional gene microarray (GeoChip 5.0), we found t...

In order to assess changes in the community structure of ectomycorrhizal fungi across the tree line, data on distributions of fungi and their host plants, as well as on edaphic factors and stand age, were collected at two montane sites in the Front Range of the Canadian Rockies. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) was used to explore relationships between fungal species composition and envi...

*Relatively little is known about diversity or structure of tropical ectomycorrhizal communities or their roles in tropical ecosystem dynamics. In this study, we present one of the largest molecular studies to date of an ectomycorrhizal community in lowland dipterocarp rainforest. *We sampled roots from two 0.4 ha sites located across an ecotone within a 52 ha forest dynamics plot. Our plots co...

Climate change and the widespread alteration of natural habitats are major drivers of vegetation change in drylands. In the Chihuahuan Desert, large areas of grasslands dominated by perennial grass species have transitioned over the last 150 years to shrublands dominated by woody species, accompanied by accelerated water and wind erosion. Multiple mechanisms drive the shrub-encroachment process...

Ren, H.; Guo, Q.; Liu, H.; Li, J.; Zhang, Q.; Xu, H., and Xu, F., 2014. Patterns of alien plant invasion across coastal bay areas in southern China. Journal of Coastal Research, 30(3), 448–455. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. An understanding of the ways in which levels of invasions by alien species are correlated with environmental factors is helpful to manage the negative impacts of ...