Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
November 2020
Forest vulnerability to drought is expected to increase under anthropogenic climate change, and drought-induced mortality and community dynamics following drought have major ecological and societal impacts. Here, we show that tree mortality concomitant with drought has led to short-term (mean 5 y, range 1 to 23 y after mortality) vegetation-type conversion in multiple biomes across the world (131 sites). Self-replacement of the dominant tree species was only prevalent in 21% of the examined cases and forests and woodlands shifted to nonwoody vegetation in 10% of them.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Aims: Atmospheric nitrogen deposition and natural fire regime suppression are key drivers of vegetation change in urbanizing grasslands. Some species thrive under these conditions, while others face local extinction. In the natural grasslands that surround Melbourne, Australia, biotic homogenization has occurred with intensifying urbanization.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFrequent burning is commonly undertaken to maintain diversity in temperate grasslands of southern Australia. How burning affects below-ground fungal community diversity remains unknown. We show, using a fungal rDNA metabarcoding approach (Illumina MiSeq), that the fungal community composition was influenced by fire regime (frequency) but not time-since-fire.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFScience
December 2010
Objective: The Charles procedure is an aggressive operation usually only indicated for severe lymphedema as it often yields an unpredictable outcome. We modified this procedure in order to achieve predictable results.
Methods: The modification entailed the use of a negative-pressure dressing after the initial debulking surgery and then the delay of skin grafting by 5 to 7 days.