Approximately 25 years ago, ecologists became increasingly interested in the question of
whether ongoing biodiversity loss matters for the functioning of ecosystems. As such, a new …

Understanding how drylands respond to ongoing environmental change is extremely
important for global sustainability. In this review, we discuss how biotic attributes, climate …

Predicting which species will occur together in the future, and where, remains one of the
greatest challenges in ecology, and requires a sound understanding of how the abiotic and …

Experiments suggest that biodiversity enhances the ability of ecosystems to maintain
multiple functions, such as carbon storage, productivity, and the buildup of nutrient pools …

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) cover about 12% of the Earth's land masses, thereby
providing ecosystem services and affecting biogeochemical fluxes on a global scale. They …

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts)—communities of mosses, lichens, cyanobacteria, and
heterotrophs living at the soil surface—are fundamental components of drylands worldwide …

Dryland ecosystems account for ca. 27% of global soil organic carbon (C) reserves, yet it is
largely unknown how climate change will impact C cycling and storage in these areas. In …

Drylands occupy large portions of the Earth, and are a key terrestrial biome from the socio-
ecological point of view. In spite of their extent and importance, the impacts of global …

The response of drylands to environmental gradients can be abrupt rather than gradual.
These shifts largely occur unannounced and are difficult to reverse once they happen; their …

Once seen as anomalous, facilitative interactions among plants and their importance for
community structure and functioning are now widely recognized. The growing body of …