Despite the abundance of fossil remains for the extinct steppe bison (Bison priscus), an animal that was painted and engraved in numerous European Paleolithic caves, a complete mitochondrial genome sequence has never been obtained for this species. In the present study we collected bone samples from a sector of the Trois-Frères Paleolithic cave (Ariège, France) that formerly functioned as a pit...

BELARUS IS SITUATED AT A CROSSROAD OF NATURAL BORDERS OF SPECIES DISTRIBUTIONS: the NE part is situated in a taiga zone, whereas the other part of terrain is in the European forest zone. The distance of Belarus to the steppe zone is about 330 kilometers. This geographical position and the extensive knowledge of its fauna can be used to monitor changes in the distribution of different species. A...

BACKGROUND Mowing is a widely adopted management practice for the semiarid steppe in China and affects CH(4) exchange. However, the magnitude and the underlying mechanisms for CH(4) uptake in response to mowing remain uncertain. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS In two consecutive growing seasons, we measured the effect of mowing on CH(4) uptake in a steppe community. Vegetation was mowed to 2 c...

Remote sensing indices of burn area and fire severity have been developed and tested for forest ecosystems, but not sparsely vegetated, desert shrub-steppe in which large wildfires are a common occurrence and a major issue for land management. We compared the performance of remote sensing indices for detecting burn area and fire severity with extensive ground-based cover assessments made before...

The Tibetan Plateau, known as the “world’s third pole” for its extremely harsh and fragile ecological environment, has attracted great attention because of its sensitivity to global changes. Alpine grassland on the Tibetan Plateau has an important function in the global carbon cycle. Many studies have examined the effects of various environmental factors on biomass distribution. In this study, ...

For the past several years, USGS has taken a multi-faceted approach to investigating the condition and trends in sagebrush steppe ecosystems. This recent effort builds upon decades of work in semi-arid ecosystems providing a specific, applied focus on the cumulative impacts of expanding human activities across these landscapes. Here, we discuss several on-going projects contributing to these ef...

Cand Ku-band scatterometer backscatter time series are analysed and compared to meteorological data for two biomes, the African Steppe and the Scandinavian Boreal Forest. Observed characteristics of large scale scattering are inferred and discussed.

The two living species of bison (European and American) are among the few terrestrial megafauna to have survived the late Pleistocene extinctions. Despite the extensive bovid fossil record in Eurasia, the evolutionary history of the European bison (or wisent, Bison bonasus) before the Holocene (<11.7 thousand years ago (kya)) remains a mystery. We use complete ancient mitochondrial genomes and ...

Semi-steppe rangelands are a complex, highly dynamic and often multi-layered mosaic of grassland, shrubland, and intermediate communities. A few recent studies have explicitly or implicitly developed synthetic hypotheses about how interactive effects of human made disturbances initiate dynamic changes in plant community composition to cause a shifting mosaic of vegetation pattern across the lan...

Semi-steppe rangelands are a complex, highly dynamic and often multi-layered mosaic of grassland, shrubland, and intermediate communities. A few recent studies have explicitly or implicitly developed synthetic hypotheses about how interactive effects of human made disturbances initiate dynamic changes in plant community composition to cause a shifting mosaic of vegetation pattern across the lan...