{"id":6301,"date":"2021-08-08T08:57:30","date_gmt":"2021-08-08T06:57:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/?p=6301"},"modified":"2021-08-08T09:00:37","modified_gmt":"2021-08-08T07:00:37","slug":"dead-shrub-patches-as-ecosystem-engineers-in-degraded-drylands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/dead-shrub-patches-as-ecosystem-engineers-in-degraded-drylands\/","title":{"rendered":"Dead shrub patches as ecosystem engineers in degraded drylands"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Authors: Ilan Stavi<\/strong>, Eli Zaady, Alexander Gusarov, Hezi Yizhaq<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published in:<\/strong> Journal of Geographical Sciences 2021, 31, 1187\u20131204<\/p>\n<p><strong>More information: <a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/epdf\/10.1007\/s11442-021-1892-2?sharing_token=KpZYysU_-a7wSa1Ba2qlW_e4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY4ahhm8eVnfEq4HS4lgptsaF2Oiz7ZexVu08nxF_TAybnY54Qd5_ZgDgnqVrJkB7NC6vJTJT0oOCKXU4gLvC9HXODv2fPz_jXgt0Owsub8yWmkCeExTnRONNWK2c7aKMSo%3D\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">LINK<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A long-term drought has led to the mass mortality of shrubs in the semi-arid Israeli Negev. The most impacted shrub species is the Noaea mucronata (Forssk.) Asch. and Schweinf. In a four-year study, we found that herbaceous vegetation growth was greater in the dead shrub patches than in the surrounding inter-patch biocrusted spaces, suggesting that the dead shrub patches encompass improved micro-habitats. However, unexpectedly, the soil moisture in the dead shrub patches was consistently lower than that of the inter-patch biocrusted spaces. At the same time, soil quality in the dead shrub patches was higher than that in the inter-patch spaces. Therefore, it seems that the overall better soil conditions in the dead patches overcome the scarcity of soil-water, supporting increased herbaceous productivity. For explaining the discrepancy between herbaceous vegetation and soil-water, we formulated a conceptual framework, which highlights the key factors that regulate soil-water dynamics in this dryland ecosystem. We demonstrate that herbaceous vegetation is facilitated in the dead shrub patches by a legacy effect that takes place long after the shrubs have died. The dead shrub patches encompass a unique form of ecosystem engineering. The study highlights the complex and unpredicted impacts of prolonged droughts on dryland ecosystems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Authors: Ilan Stavi, Eli Zaady, Alexander Gusarov, Hezi Yizhaq Published in: Journal of Geographical Sciences 2021, 31, 1187\u20131204 More information: LINK Abstract A long-term drought has led to the mass mortality of shrubs in the semi-arid Israeli Negev. The most impacted shrub species is the Noaea mucronata (Forssk.) Asch. and Schweinf. In a four-year study, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6303,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[217],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6301","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-article"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/snail4.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6301"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6305,"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6301\/revisions\/6305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adssc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}