AIM The global spread of woody plants into grasslands is predicted to increase over the coming century. While there is general agreement regarding the anthropogenic causes of this phenomenon, its ecological consequences are less certain. We analyzed how woody vegetation of differing cover affects plant diversity (richness and evenness) and multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality) in gl...

Hyperarid, arid, semiarid, and dry subhumid areas cover approximately 41% of the global land area. The human population in drylands, currently estimated at 2.7 billion, faces limited access to sufficient, affordable, nutritious food. We discuss interlinkages among water security, environmental energy economic health food security governance, how they affect drylands. Reliable adequate supply, p...

An integrated approach to reservoir, irrigation, and cropping management which links four di€erent modelsÐa hydrologic model (PRMS), a crop growth simulation model (EPIC), an economic model based on linear programming, and a dynamic programming modelÐis developed and demonstrated. The demonstration is based on an irrigation district located in a subhumid climate with an irrigation reservoir lar...

Paleosols are an important tool in the paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental interpretation of continental deposits and can provide a high-resolution proxy for paleoclimate. Results from geochemical climofunctions applied to Early Miocene strata exposed in the Ebro Basin, Spain, demonstrate that mean annual precipitation was the dominant control on paleosol type and indicate that the paleoclimat...

New Zealand Journal of Ecology (1998) 22(2): 121-140 ©New Zealand Ecological Society primarily for wool production, the c. 1 million ha of montane-subalpine short-tussock (Festuca novae-zelandiae) grassland in the subhumid and humid zones have proved particularly susceptible. By 1990 Hieracium species were dominant in about 50% of these grasslands (Hunter, 1991). H. pilosella is well adapted to...

Environmental effects are not considered sufficiently in product design. Reliability problems caused by environmental effects are very prominent. This paper proposes a method to apply ontology approach in product design. During product reliability design and analysis, environmental effects knowledge reusing is achieved. First, the relationship of environmental effects and product reliability is...