The Chilean sclerophyllous matorral is a Mediterranean semiarid ecosystem affected by erosion, with low soil fertility, and limited by nitrogen. However, limitation of resources is even more severe for desert soils such as from the Atacama Desert, one of the most extreme arid deserts on Earth. Topsoil organic matter, nitrogen and moisture content were significantly higher in the semiarid soil c...

Changes to animal movement in response to human-induced changes to the environment are of growing concern in conservation. Most research on this problem has focused on terrestrial endotherms, but changes to herpetofaunal movement are also of concern given their limited dispersal abilities and specialized thermophysiological requirements. Animals in the desert region of the southwestern United S...

We present fossil pollen data and discuss their climatic interpretations from a 688-cm-long sediment core from Hurleg Lake, a freshwater lake located in the Qaidam Basin on the NE Tibetan Plateau, just beyond the northern limit of the East Asian summer monsoon influence. The reconstruction of the Holocene vegetation and climate history was aided by modern surface pollen analysis. The 14000-yr c...

karizes (qanat) prepare a part of fresh water sources in main desert of iran. the arid regions in deserts have isolated suitable aquatic habitats as strong barriers, thus only a few places with surface waters have remained accessible for water- related insects. this paper represents the results of only study on dragonfly species of karizes. we identified 10 species of typical desert dragonflies...

Changes in precipitation could have crucial influences on the regional water resources in arid regions such as Xinjiang. It is necessary to understand the intrinsic multi-scale variations of precipitation in different parts of Xinjiang in the context of climate change. In this study, based on precipitation data from 53 meteorological stations in Xinjiang during 1960-2012, we investigated the in...

Coccidioidomycosis caused by Coccidioides immitis or Coccidioides posadasii is endemic in arid climate zones in America, travel-related cases have been reported. We report the first documented case of coccidioidomycosis in Turkey, overviewing reported cases in Europe and underlying difficulties of differential diagnosis outside endemic regions. The patient was an otherwise healthy 41-year-old m...

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soil is one of the most important natural resources covering a large area of the land surface. soil plays a vital role in biosphere processes, such as energy balance, hydrology, biochemistry, and biological productivity. it supports plants that supply foods, fibers, drugs, and some other human needs. conversely, desert regions include about one third of earth lands and these regions have increa...

there are more than 750 counties in 13 provinces and autonomous regionsconstituting 30% of china lands which are facing serious problem of desertification. theseareas are mainly distributed in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas in the western part ofnortheast china, north central china and most of northwest china. biological methods are theultimate way for drift sand stabilization and a fu...