Studies have documented many biophysical factors that are correlated with urban forest carbon storage. This urban forest function is also increasingly being promoted as a nature-based solution for cities. While urbanization affects both the structure and function of urban forest ecosystems, quantitative analyses of specific casual drivers of carbon storage in urban versus peri-urban forests are...

Biomass partitioning has been explored across various biomes. However, the strategies of allocation in plants still remain contentious. This study investigated allocation patterns of above- and belowground biomass at the community level, using biomass survey from the Tibetan Plateau. We explored above- and belowground biomass by conducting three consecutive sampling campaigns across shrub biome...

Proliferation of woody plants in grasslands and savannas is a persistent problem globally. This widely observed shift from grass to shrub dominance in rangelands worldwide has been heterogeneous in space and time largely due to cross-scale interactions among soils, climate, and land-use history. Our objective was to use a hierarchical framework to evaluate the relationship between spatial patte...

—Quantifying root biomass is critical to an estimation and understanding of ecosystem net primary production, biomass partitioning, and belowground competition. We compared 2 methods for determining root biomass: a new soil-coring technique and traditional excavation of quantitative pits. We conducted the study in an existing Joint Fire Sciences demonstration area in the central Great Basin. Th...

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...

Few studies have examined how below-ground interactions among plants affect the abundance and community composition of symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi. Here, we combined observations during drought with a removal experiment to examine the effects of below-ground interactions with arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) shrubs on the growth of pinyon pines (Pinus edulis), and the abundance and community composi...

Woody plant abundance is widely recognized to have increased in savannas and grasslands worldwide. The lack of information on the rates, dynamics, and extent of increases in shrub abundance is a major source of uncertainty in assessing how this vegetation change has influenced biogeochemical cycles. Projecting future consequences of woody cover change on ecosystem function will require knowledg...

The agro-silvopastoral system ‘montado’ is mostly dominated by Mediterranean evergreen oaks such as, cork oak (Quercus suber L.) and holm oak (Quercus rotundifolia). The ‘montado’ production system management aims the maintenance of a balanced sustainable land use to cope with the Mediterranean climate variability. One important issue in cork oak forests is the control shrub growth in order to ...