Unforeseen plant phenotypic diversity in a dry and grazed world.

Earth harbours an extraordinary plant phenotypic diversity that is at risk from ongoing global changes. However, it remains unknown how increasing aridity and livestock grazing pressure-two major drivers of global change-shape the trait covariation that underlies plant phenotypic diversity. Here we assessed how covariation among 20 chemical and morphological traits responds to aridity and grazing pressure within global drylands.

Multi-model assessment of potential natural vegetation to support ecological restoration.

Ecological restoration is imperative for controlling desertification. Potential natural vegetation (PNV), the theoretical vegetation succession state, can guides near-natural restoration. Although a rising transition from traditional statistical methods to advanced machine learning and deep learning is observed in PNV simulation, a comprehensive comparison of their performance is still unexplored.

Hotspots of biogeochemical activity linked to aridity and plant traits across global drylands.

Perennial plants create productive and biodiverse hotspots, known as fertile islands, beneath their canopies. These hotspots largely determine the structure and functioning of drylands worldwide. Despite their ubiquity, the factors controlling fertile islands under conditions of contrasting grazing by livestock, the most prevalent land use in drylands, remain virtually unknown.

The global biogeography and environmental drivers of fairy circles.

Fairy circles (FCs) are regular vegetation patterns found in drylands of Namibia and Western Australia. It is virtually unknown whether they are also present in other regions of the world and which environmental factors determine their distribution. We conducted a global systematic survey and found FC-like vegetation patterns in 263 sites from 15 countries and three continents, including the Sahel, Madagascar, and Middle-West Asia.

Feeding Ecology of the Cuvier's Gazelle (, Ogilby, 1841) in the Sahara Desert.

Knowledge of the feeding ecology of ungulates in arid biomes offers an interesting model for understanding the drought resistance of large desert-adapted herbivores, a crucial issue in the face of increasing desertification due to climate change. To assess the feeding ecology of the endangered Cuvier's gazelle () in the Sahara desert, we used a multi-method approach combining faecal samples, direct observations, and the recording of indirect signs of feeding. We hypothesised that browser behaviour is the best foraging strategy for species living in hyper-arid environments, mainly due to long periods without grazing opportunities.

Implementing climate change projections in System Dynamics models.

Desertification is the degradation of drylands, which occupy an increasing proportion of the Earth's surface due to global warming. It is currently the most extensive biome on Earth, occupying 45% and one out of every three inhabitants of the planet live in them. One of the most effective ways to face desertification, as Land Degradation Neutrality points out, is prevention.

Grazing and ecosystem service delivery in global drylands.

Grazing represents the most extensive use of land worldwide. Yet its impacts on ecosystem services remain uncertain because pervasive interactions between grazing pressure, climate, soil properties, and biodiversity may occur but have never been addressed simultaneously. Using a standardized survey at 98 sites across six continents, we show that interactions between grazing pressure, climate, soil, and biodiversity are critical to explain the delivery of fundamental ecosystem services across drylands worldwide.

Climate legacies drive the distribution and future restoration potential of dryland forests.

Knowing the extent and environmental drivers of forests is key to successfully restore degraded ecosystems, and to mitigate climate change and desertification impacts using tree planting. Water availability is the main limiting factor for the development of forests in drylands, yet the importance of groundwater resources and palaeoclimate as drivers of their current distribution has been neglected. Here we report that mid-Holocene climates and aquifer trends are key predictors of the distribution of dryland forests worldwide.

Mask R-CNN and OBIA Fusion Improves the Segmentation of Scattered Vegetation in Very High-Resolution Optical Sensors.

Vegetation generally appears scattered in drylands. Its structure, composition and spatial patterns are key controls of biotic interactions, water, and nutrient cycles. Applying segmentation methods to very high-resolution images for monitoring changes in vegetation cover can provide relevant information for dryland conservation ecology.

A dataset with complete geographic distributions of eight zonal monospecific forest types in mainland Spain.

Distribution area and surface are both parameters of paramount importance for habitat management, monitoring and conservation. Here we present the distribution of eight zonal forest types of mainland Spain that are consistent with the Habitat Types (HT) listed in Annex I of the European Union Habitats Directive 92/43 EC. Their dominant species and HT codes are (9120, 9130 and 9150), and (9230), (9330), (9430), ssp.

Exploring the economic, social and environmental prospects for commercial natural annual grasslands by performing a sensitivity analysis on a multidisciplinary integrated model.

This paper presents an integrated modelling study aimed at exploring the possible effects of drivers of change in commercial natural annual grasslands. We consider drivers as factors that affect the rangeland but are not affected by it. Thus, the stocking rate is not treated as a driver, but as an endogenous factor ultimately determined by drivers.

Global effectiveness of group decision-making strategies in coping with forage and price variabilities in commercial rangelands: A modelling assessment.

This paper presents a modelling study that evaluated the global effectiveness of a range of group decision-making strategies for commercial farming areas in rangelands affected by temporal variations in forage production. The assessment utilised an integrated system dynamics model (86 equations) to examine the broad and long-term group decision outcomes. This model considers aspects usually neglected in related studies, such as the dynamics of the main local prices, the dynamics of the number of active farmers, the supplementary feeding of livestock, and certain behavioural traits of farmers and traders.

A feasible methodology for groundwater resource modelling for sustainable use in sparse-data drylands: Application to the Amtoudi Oasis in the northern Sahara.

In a previous paper, the Amtoudi Oasis, a remote area in the northern Sahara in southern Morocco, was chosen to model the dynamics of groundwater-dependent economics under different scenarios of water availability, both the wet 2009-2010 and the average 2010-2011 hydrological years. Groundwater imbalance was reflected by net aquifer recharge (R) less than groundwater allotment for agriculture and urban uses in the average year 2010-2011. Three key groundwater sustainability issues from the hydrologic perspective were raised for future research, which are addressed in this paper.

Doomed to collapse: Why Algerian steppe rangelands are overgrazed and some lessons to help land-use transitions.

This work illustrates the application of a simulation model to analyse how swiftly large-scale land-use changes can drive broad territories to collapse. In this sense, the economic needs of a population should not clash with the natural environment but rather be reconciled with it. Abundant literature deals with the integration of socioeconomic drivers, ecological aspects, farming management, and climatology related to Algerian rangeland degradation.

Present and future of desertification in Spain: Implementation of a surveillance system to prevent land degradation.

Mitigation strategies are crucial for desertification given that once degradation starts, other solutions are extremely expensive or unworkable. Prevention is key to handle this problem and solutions should be based on spotting and deactivating the stressors of the system. Following this topic, the Spanish Plan of Action to Combat Desertification (SPACD) created the basis for implementing two innovative approaches to evaluate the threat of land degradation in the country.

A hydrological-economic model for sustainable groundwater use in sparse-data drylands: Application to the Amtoudi Oasis in southern Morocco, northern Sahara.

A hydrological-economic model is introduced to describe the dynamics of groundwater-dependent economics (agriculture and tourism) for sustainable use in sparse-data drylands. The Amtoudi Oasis, a remote area in southern Morocco, in the northern Sahara attractive for tourism and with evidence of groundwater degradation, was chosen to show the model operation. Governing system variables were identified and put into action through System Dynamics (SD) modeling causal diagrams to program basic formulations into a model having two modules coupled by the nexus 'pumping': (1) the hydrological module represents the net groundwater balance (G) dynamics; and (2) the economic module reproduces the variation in the consumers of water, both the population and tourists.

Landscape changes of desertification in arid areas: the case of south-west Algeria.

This study aims to monitor the arid Algerian High Plateaus, a key region for pastoral activities which has suffered harsh and widespread degradation from the eighties. This area is not sufficiently known by the international scientific community. For this purpose, we considered phytoecological inventories and thematic maps that have been carried out during 30 years.