Unexpected consequences of afforestation in degraded drylands: Divergent impacts on soil and vegetation.

Forestry has long been considered an effective means of restoring degraded drylands worldwide. Often, afforestation in such lands relies on the establishment of runoff harvesting systems that are formed as contour bench terraces on hillslopes, increasing water availability for the planted trees and shrubs. The construction of terraces requires intensive earthworks by heavy machinery.

In Its Southern Edge of Distribution, the Tawny Owl () Is More Sensitive to Extreme Temperatures Than to Rural Development.

Populations at the warm edge of distribution are more genetically diverse, and at the same time are more susceptible to climate change. Between 1987-1996, we studied Tawny Owls in Israel, the species' global southern edge of distribution and a country undergoing a rapid land cover transformation for over a century. To assess the potential impacts of land cover transformation, we modelled the species' most suitable habitat and climate and analyzed how climate and habitat affected the nesting success and prey selection.

Environmental controls on butterfly occurrence and species richness in Israel: The importance of temperature over rainfall.

Butterflies are considered important indicators representing the state of biodiversity and key ecosystem functions, but their use as bioindicators requires a better understanding of how their observed response is linked to environmental factors. Moreover, better understanding how butterfly faunas vary with climate and land cover may be useful to estimate the potential impacts of various drivers, including climate change, botanical succession, grazing, and afforestation. It is particularly important to establish which species of butterflies are sensitive to each environmental driver.

A model of digestive tooth corrosion in lizards: experimental tests and taphonomic implications.

Corrosion patterns induced by gastric fluids on the skeleton of prey animals may depend on the nature of the corrosive agents (acid, enzymes) as well as on the composition of the hard parts and the soft tissues that surround them. We propose a framework for predicting and interpreting corrosion patterns on lizard teeth, our model system, drawing on the different digestive pathways of avian and non-avian vertebrate predators. We propose that high-acid, low-enzyme systems (embodied by mammalian carnivores) will lead to corrosion of the tooth crowns, whereas low-acid, high-enzyme systems (embodied by owls) will lead to corrosion of the tooth shafts.

InsectChange: a global database of temporal changes in insect and arachnid assemblages.

Insects are the most ubiquitous and diverse group of eukaryotic organisms on Earth, forming a crucial link in terrestrial and freshwater food webs. They have recently become the subject of headlines because of observations of dramatic declines in some places. Although there are hundreds of long-term insect monitoring programs, a global database for long-term data on insect assemblages has so far remained unavailable.

Analysis of monitoring data where butterflies fly year-round.

Butterfly Monitoring Schemes (BMSs) engage the public in conservation and provide data sets that cover broad geographical areas over long timescales. Most existing BMSs are in temperate climates; however, the Israeli Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (BMS-IL), established in 2009, is a notable exception as it encompasses a large climatic gradient from Euro-Siberian through Mediterranean to hyper-arid regions. Israel's climate poses challenges in analyzing data from year-round butterfly activity, as in other tropical or arid countries.

Predictive modelling in paleoenvironmental reconstruction: The micromammals of Manot Cave, Israel.

This paper describes the micromammalian remains and paleoenvironment of the Upper Paleolithic sequence of Manot Cave (46-34 ka), southern Levant. Micromammal remains were identified from Ahmarian (46-42 ka), Levantine Aurignacian (38-34 ka) and post-Levantine Aurignacian (34-33 ka) layers. To identify taphonomic agents, molar digestion was modelled for seven local raptor species, and model predictions were compared with observed digestion scores in the Manot Cave material.

The last glacial cycle of the southern Levant: Paleoenvironment and chronology of modern humans.

The spectrum of glacial-interglacial environmental shifts in the southern Levant Mediterranean zone is evaluated based upon carbon isotopic records of speleothems from several caves, faunal records of Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic layers in caves, together with additional evidence from the base levels of the region. The studied evidence suggests that food resources were commonly abundant, but some water scarcity and increase in summer rains occurred during MIS 5e, when soils and C vegetation were eliminated, causing soil erosion. This was followed by penetration of summer rainfall and lightning storms from the south, and associated C vegetation and fires.

What determines prey selection in owls? Roles of prey traits, prey class, environmental variables, and taxonomic specialization.

Ecological theory suggests that prey size should increase with predator size, but this trend may be masked by other factors affecting prey selection, such as environmental constraints or specific prey preferences of predator species. Owls are an ideal case study for exploring how predator body size affects prey selection in the presence of other factors due to the ease of analyzing their diets from owl pellets and their widespread distributions, allowing interspecific comparisons between variable habitats. Here, we analyze various dimensions of prey resource selection among owls, including prey size, taxonomy (i.

In situ transplant analysis of free-living bacteria in a lotic ecosystem.

The Yarqon is a slow-flowing Mediterranean stream with three ecologically distinct sections, with varying abiotic conditions and anthropogenic influences. We used the Yarqon as a test habitat to study the effect of flow on microbial communities. Stream water samples from three distinct abiotic conditions: "clean", "human-impacted" and "brackish" sections were incubated in situ in dialysis bags at each of these sections for approximately 73 h.