Covering 40% of the terrestrial surface, dryland ecosystems characteristically have distinct
vegetation structures that are strongly linked to their function. Existing survey approaches …

Rangelands cover 70% of the world's land surface, and provide critical ecosystem services
of primary production, soil carbon storage, and nutrient cycling. These ecosystem services …

Soil erosion is a selective process which removes the light fraction comprised of soil organic
carbon (SOC) and colloidal particles of clay and fine silt. Thus, a large amount of carbon (C) …

The eddy covariance method is widely used to investigate fluxes of energy, water, and
carbon dioxide at landscape scales, providing important information on how ecological …

The rapid conversion of grasslands into shrublands has been observed in many arid and
semiarid regions worldwide. Studies have shown that fire can negatively affect shrub …

Karst rocky desertification, a kind of intense soil degradation, has become an urgent
environmental issue in the karst region of southwest China. It was found that limestone soil …

Across the semiarid ecosystems of the southwestern USA, there has been widespread
encroachment of woody shrubs and trees including Juniperus species into former …

Drylands contain a third of the organic carbon stored in global soils; however, the long-term
dynamics of soil organic carbon in drylands remain poorly understood relative to dynamics …

Aims In many mixed grass-shrub ecosystems, increased shrub biomass tends to promote
overall carbon storage, but the distribution of carbon pools may be complicated by …

Fire disturbance represents a major driver of soil nitrogen (N) distribution in many arid and
semiarid grasslands. The spatial patterns of soil N and δ 15 N at microsite scale following …