Halophytes are plants which naturally survive in saline environment. They account for ∼1% of the total flora of the world. They include both dicots and monocots and are distributed mainly in arid, semi-arid inlands and saline wet lands along the tropical and sub-tropical coasts. Salinity tolerance in halophytes depends on a set of ecological and physiological characteristics that allow them to ...

Biological soil crusts are key mediators of carbon and nitrogen inputs for arid land soils and often represent a dominant portion of the soil surface cover in arid lands. Free-living soil nematode communities reflect their environment and have been used as biological indicators of soil condition. In this study, we test the hypothesis that nematode communities are successionally more mature bene...

Question: Do, in a semi-arid gypsum environment, neighbours condition the spatial patterns of emergence, survival and height of Helianthemum squamatum seedlings ? Location: Vicinity of Chinchón, province of Madrid, Spain (40°11'N, 3° 35'W, 550 m a.s.l.) Methods: We evaluated the effects of neighbours on the survival and growth of naturally emerging Helianthemum seedlings in a semi-arid area dur...