Has water limited our imagination for aridland biogeochemistry?

The classic ecological paradigm for deserts, that all processes are controlled by water availability, has limited our imagination for exploring other controls on the cycling of carbon and nutrients in aridland ecosystems. This review of recent studies identifies alternative mechanisms that challenge the idea that all soil processes in aridlands are proximately water-limited, and highlights the significance of photodegradation of aboveground litter and the overriding importance of spatial heterogeneity as a modulator of biotic responses to water availability. Aridlands currently occupy >30% of the terrestrial land surface and are expanding. It is therefore critical to incorporate these previously unappreciated mechanisms in our understanding of aridland biogeochemistry to mitigate the effects of desertification and global change.

• Publication year

  2011

• Venue

  Trends in Ecology & Evolution

• Publication date

  2011-05-01

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.tree.2011.02.003PMID 21397975
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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