Chihuahan Desert.Notebook September 21, 2020
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Supplementary Materials Section S1. Tabernas
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS SECTION S1. TABERNAS BADLANDS The climatological conditions and the sparsely vegetated landscape of the study area justify the local name of “Desierto de Tabernas” (Tabernas Desert) (Lázaro, Rodrigo, Gutiérrez, Domingo, & Puigdefábregas, 2001). However, it does not meet the demanding climatic criteria for entry into the desert category. The main argument that can be given for it is that the climate of the zone is semi-arid. In addition, the vegetation cover is thick where it can be. The asymmetry present in many of the small catchments integrating these badlands is linked to the vegetation pattern. North to east facing hillslopes are larger, more stable and less steep. Here plant cover ranges from 20% to 40% in the area (Puigdefabregas, Sole, Gutierrez, del Barrio, & Boer, 1999). The opposite slopes are affected by erosion, shorter, steeper, and bare (Calvo- Cases et al., 2014). The Tabernas badlands cannot be considered as the result of a desertification process. There has been no misuse of resources here (at least until recently, see next section). In other words, this desolate landscape is not the result of overexploitation. The reason is that this territory, due to its complicated orography, has never harbored an economy capable of promote substantial land degradation. On the upper hillslopes, M. tenacissima used to be harvested for cellulose, while the footslope sedimentary fill was cultivated with rainfed cereal crops. Both types of land use ceased about 50 years ago (Puigdefabregas et al., 1999). It was also possible to find some irrigation confined to small areas by then. In Almería, the use of subsoil water in irrigation is a long-established and dominant practice (Sánchez-Picón, Aznar-Sánchez, & García-Latorre, 2011) and, although by far the greater part of the agricultural lands was not irrigated, irrigation has been the economic basis of Almería because of the high yields it produced (Latorre, García-Latorre, & Sanchez-Picón, 2001). -
Moss-Dominated Biocrusts Increase Soil Microbial Abundance And
Applied Soil Ecology 117–118 (2017) 165–177 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Applied Soil Ecology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apsoil Moss-dominated biocrusts increase soil microbial abundance and MARK community diversity and improve soil fertility in semi-arid climates on the Loess Plateau of China ⁎ Bo Xiaoa,b, , Maik Vestec,d a Department of Soil and Water Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China b State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yangling, 712100, China c University of Hohenheim, Institute of Botany (210), Garbenstrasse 30, Stuttgart, 70599, Germany d Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg, Soil Protection and Recultivation, Konrad-Wachsmann-Allee 6, Cottbus, 03046, Germany ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Various ecological functions of biocrusts are mostly determined by their bacterial and fungal abundance and Biological soil crust community diversity, which has not yet been fully investigated. To provide more insights into this issue, we Microbiotic crust collected samples of moss biocrusts, fixed sand, and mobile sand from a watershed with semi-arid climate on the Microbial community composition Loess Plateau of China. The relative abundances and community diversities of soil bacteria and fungi of the Microbial community diversity samples were determined using high-throughput DNA sequencing. Finally, we analyzed the characteristics of Relative abundance of species bacterial and fungal community of the moss biocrusts and their relationships to the content of soil nutrients. Our High-throughput sequencing results showed that the moss biocrusts had 1048 bacterial OTUs (operational taxonomic units) and 58 fungal OTUs, and their Shannon diversity indexes were 5.56 and 1.65, respectively. -
North American Deserts Chihuahuan - Great Basin Desert - Sonoran – Mojave
North American Deserts Chihuahuan - Great Basin Desert - Sonoran – Mojave http://www.desertusa.com/desert.html In most modern classifications, the deserts of the United States and northern Mexico are grouped into four distinct categories. These distinctions are made on the basis of floristic composition and distribution -- the species of plants growing in a particular desert region. Plant communities, in turn, are determined by the geologic history of a region, the soil and mineral conditions, the elevation and the patterns of precipitation. Three of these deserts -- the Chihuahuan, the Sonoran and the Mojave -- are called "hot deserts," because of their high temperatures during the long summer and because the evolutionary affinities of their plant life are largely with the subtropical plant communities to the south. The Great Basin Desert is called a "cold desert" because it is generally cooler and its dominant plant life is not subtropical in origin. Chihuahuan Desert: A small area of southeastern New Mexico and extreme western Texas, extending south into a vast area of Mexico. Great Basin Desert: The northern three-quarters of Nevada, western and southern Utah, to the southern third of Idaho and the southeastern corner of Oregon. According to some, it also includes small portions of western Colorado and southwestern Wyoming. Bordered on the south by the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts. Mojave Desert: A portion of southern Nevada, extreme southwestern Utah and of eastern California, north of the Sonoran Desert. Sonoran Desert: A relatively small region of extreme south-central California and most of the southern half of Arizona, east to almost the New Mexico line. -
Soil Loss) Assessment 29 5.1 Introduction
Soil Erosion Assessment Using Remotely Sensed Data and Ancillary Data in the Desert Of Tabernas, southeast Spain Yared Jillo Gobena , 2003 Soil Erosion Assessment Using Remotely Sensed Data and Ancillary Data in the Desert Of Tabernas, southeast Spain by Yared Jillo Gobena Thesis submitted to the International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree in Master of Science in Geo-information Science and Earth Observation, Environmental System Analysis and Monitoring specialization. Degree Assessment Board Thesis advisor Dr. Tsehaie Woldai prof. Dr. Freek van der Meer Thesis examiners prof. Dr. Freek van der Meer (Chairman) Dr. K.Hein UU (External Examiner) Dr. Dr. D.P. Shrestha (Member) Dr. P.M. van Dijk (PD) (Observer) INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR GEO-INFORMATION SCIENCE AND EARTH OBSERVATION ENSCHEDE, THE NETHERLANDS Disclaimer This document describes work undertaken as part of a programme of study at the International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC). All views and opinions expressed therein remain the sole responsibility of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of the institute. Contents List of Figures iii List of Tables v Acknowledgements vii Abstract ix 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS IN THE STUDY AREA . 3 1.2 PREVIOUS ACTIVITIES . 4 1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES . 5 1.4 IMPORTANCE OF THE RESEARCH . 5 1.5 METHODOLOGY . 5 1.6 RESEARCH MOTIVATIONS . 6 1.7 HYPOTHESIS . 7 1.8 RESEARCH OUTLINE . 7 2 DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY AREA 9 2.1 LOCATIONS AND ACCESS . 9 2.2 CLIMATE . 10 2.3 GEOMORPHOLOGY . -
UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations
UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Vesicular Horizon Distribution, Properties, and Pedogenic Processes in Deserts of the Western United States Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/325854wj Author Turk, Judith Katherine Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Vesicular Horizon Distribution, Properties, and Pedogenic Processes in Deserts of the Western United States A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Soil and Water Sciences by Judith Katherine Turk March 2012 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Robert C. Graham, Chairperson Dr. Christopher Amrhein Dr. Katherine Kendrick Copyright by Judith Katherine Turk 2012 The Dissertation of Judith Katherine Turk is approved: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge my advisor, Dr. Robert Graham, and committee members, Dr. Christopher Amrhein and Dr. Katherine Kendrick, for their guidance with the project. I am greatly indebted to several friends who helped me in the field, including Shahriar Uddin, Christina Conn, Myles Davis, and Nathan Bailey. I would like to thank Dr. Brenda Buck and Dr. Patrick Drohan for their helpful reviews of my SSSA paper, included here as Chapter 2. I am thankful to Myles Davis, Peter Homyak, and Annie Rossi for many helpful discussions about the work. I’d like to thank Tricia Menchaca for her help interpreting the lithology of the desert pavements and Nicole Pietrasiak for sharing her description of the Clark Mountains soil with me, and for including me in her permit application to work at this site. -
Newsletter of the Chihuahuan Desert Network November 2019
National Park Service Chihuahuan Desert Network U.S. Department of the Interior Inventory & Monitoring Program Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Chihuahuan Sun Newsletter of the Chihuahuan Desert Network November 2019 CHDN Highlights for 2019 It has been my great pleasure to lend a hand with the Chihuahuan protocols in 2018, and with nearly a decade of collaboration Desert Network (CHDN) this year! In addition to keeping the under our belts, it was time to assess the sustainability and efficacy program rolling, we have been pursuing three goals in 2019: of our programs in the face of flat (or even declining) budgets. (1) getting status and trend reporting moving forward (see Recent Unlike when we chose “vital signs” in the early 2000s, we now and Upcoming Reports); (2) refilling the many CHDN vacancies, have precise, detailed data on the time and costs requirements and prioritizing field positions (seeStaff Updates) – we were for each monitoring protocol. SWNC staff aggregated this data down to 2.5 FTE of NPS staff this spring!); and (3) engaging staff to determine our core staffing and budget needs to sustain the in a program review of the Southwest Network Collaboration overall program, and then began developing a range of scenarios (SWNC), which consists of Chihuahuan Desert, Southern Plains for restructuring the program to ensure that we meet our mission (SOPN), and Sonoran Desert (SODN) networks, serving 29 parks into the future. After we finish “kicking the tires” on the details across the American Southwest. of these scenarios, we will present them for your consideration Recognizing our shared resource issues, similar ecosystems, at the upcoming Technical Committee (Resource Managers) and and very limited budgets (all three SWNC networks are in the Board of Directors (Superintendent) meetings. -
Desert-2.Pdf
Desert Contens Top Ten Facts PG 1 front cover 1 All Deserts are all different but they all have low amounts of rain PG 2 contens 2 Deserts normally have less than 40 CM a year 3 The Sahara desert is in Northern Africa and is over 12 different countries PG 3 top ten facts 4 Sahara desert is the largest desert in the Earth PG 4 whether and climate 5 Only around 20% of the Deserts on Earth are covered in sand 6 Around one third of the Earth's surface is covered in Desert PG 5 desert map 7 The largest cold Desert on Earth is Antarctica PG 6 animals and people that live there 8 Located in South America, the Atacama Desert is the driest place in the world PG 7 what grows there 9 Lots of animals live in Deserts such as the wild dog 10 The Arabian Desert in the Middle East is the second largest hot desert on Earth but is substantially smaller than the Sahara. This is a list of the deserts in Wether And Climate the world Arabian Desert. ... Kalahari Desert. ... Wether Mojave Desert. ... Sonoran Desert. ... Chihuahuan Desert. ... This is a map showing Deserts are usually very, very dry. Even the wettest deserts get less than ten Thar Desert. ... the deserts in the world inches of precipitation a year. In most places, rain falls steadily throughout the Gibson Desert. year. But in the desert, there may be only a few periods of rains per year with a lot of time between rains. -
BIRDS of the TRANS-PECOS a Field Checklist
TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE BIRDS of the TRANS-PECOS a field checklist Black-throated Sparrow by Kelly B. Bryan Birds of the Trans-Pecos: a field checklist the chihuahuan desert Traditionally thought of as a treeless desert wasteland, a land of nothing more than cacti, tumbleweeds, jackrabbits and rattlesnakes – West Texas is far from it. The Chihuahuan Desert region of the state, better known as the Trans-Pecos of Texas (Fig. 1), is arguably the most diverse region in Texas. A variety of habitats ranging from, but not limited to, sanddunes, desert-scrub, arid canyons, oak-juniper woodlands, lush riparian woodlands, plateau grasslands, cienegas (desert springs), pinyon-juniper woodlands, pine-oak woodlands and montane evergreen forests contribute to a diverse and complex avifauna. As much as any other factor, elevation influences and dictates habitat and thus, bird occurrence. Elevations range from the highest point in Texas at 8,749 ft. (Guadalupe Peak) to under 1,000 ft. (below Del Rio). Amazingly, 106 peaks in the region are over 7,000 ft. in elevation; 20 are over 8,000 ft. high. These montane islands contain some of the most unique components of Texas’ avifauna. As a rule, human population in the region is relatively low and habitat quality remains good to excellent; habitat types that have been altered the most in modern times include riparian corridors and cienegas. Figure 1: Coverage area is indicated by the shaded area. This checklist covers all of the area west of the Pecos River and a corridor to the east of the Pecos River that contains areas of Chihuahuan Desert habitat types. -
Soil Wind Erosion in Ecological Olive Trees in the Tabernas Desert (Southeastern Spain): a Wind Tunnel Experiment
Solid Earth, 7, 1233–1242, 2016 www.solid-earth.net/7/1233/2016/ doi:10.5194/se-7-1233-2016 © Author(s) 2016. CC Attribution 3.0 License. Soil wind erosion in ecological olive trees in the Tabernas desert (southeastern Spain): a wind tunnel experiment Carlos Asensio1, Francisco Javier Lozano1, Pedro Gallardo1, and Antonio Giménez2 1Departamento de Agronomía, CEIA3, Campus de Excelencia Internacional en Agroalimentación, Universidad de Almería, Almería, Spain 2Departamento de Ingeniería, Universidad de Almería, Almería, Spain Correspondence to: Carlos Asensio ([email protected]) Received: 12 April 2016 – Published in Solid Earth Discuss.: 29 April 2016 Revised: 27 July 2016 – Accepted: 28 July 2016 – Published: 22 August 2016 Abstract. Wind erosion is a key component of the soil degra- by other authors for Spanish soils. As the highest loss was dation processes. The purpose of this study is to find out the found in Cambisols, mainly due to the effect on soil crusting influence of material loss from wind on soil properties for and the wind-erodible fraction aggregation of CaCO3, a Ste- different soil types and changes in soil properties in olive via rebaudiana cover crop was planted between the rows in groves when they are tilled. The study area is located in the this soil type and this favored retention of particles in vege- north of the Tabernas Desert, in the province of Almería, tation. southeastern Spain. It is one of the driest areas in Europe, with a semiarid thermo-Mediterranean type of climate. We used a new wind tunnel model over three different soil types (olive-cropped Calcisol, Cambisol and Luvisol) and studied 1 Introduction micro-plot losses and deposits detected by an integrated laser scanner. -
Jenkins Globaldiversity.Pdf (1.801Mb)
The Influence of Fire on a Rare Serpentine Plant Assemblage: A Five Year Study of Darlingtonia Fens The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Jules, Erik S., Aaron M. Ellison, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Sheilah Lillie, George A. Meindl, Nathan J. Sanders, Alison N. Young. Forthcoming. The influence of fire on a rare serpentine plant assemblage: a five year study of Darlingtonia fens. American Journal of Botany. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:4795340 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA 1 Global diversity in light of climate change: the case of ants 2 Running title: Global diversity of ants in light of climate change 3 Article type: Biodiversity Research 4 5 Authors: Clinton N. Jenkins1*, Nathan J. Sanders2,3, Alan N. Andersen4, Xavier Arnan5, Carsten 6 A. Brühl6, Xim Cerda7, Aaron M. Ellison8, Brian L. Fisher9, Matthew C. Fitzpatrick10, Nicholas 7 J. Gotelli11, Aaron D. Gove12, Benoit Guénard13, John E. Lattke14, Jean-Philippe Lessard2, 8 Terrence P. McGlynn15, Sean B. Menke16, Catherine L. Parr17, Stacy M. Philpott18, Heraldo L. 9 Vasconcelos19, Michael D. Weiser13, Robert R. Dunn13 10 11 1 Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA 12 2 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary -
The Chihuahuan Desert: Diversity at Risk
The Chihuahuan Desert: by Cathryn A. Hoyt Diversity at Risk block mountains Spanish ranchers and, later, American separated by down- settlers were drawn to the Chihuahuan faulted basins. Typically, Desert region by the lush grasslands and the basins are internally potential for grazing. Once, grasses in drained, resulting in the the Big Bend region of Texas were said formation of saline to have been tall enough to brush the ephemeral lakes known bellies of horses. Ranchers believed that as playas. Dune fields, the supply of grass to feed livestock was composed of quartz or unlimited. By the mid-19th century, the gypsum sand, are stocking of desert grassland ranges with common throughout the cattle, sheep, and goats was progressing desert, while volcanic at a phenomenal rate. In 1900, the desert Photo by Michael Bender features add additional grasslands of west Texas supported over The Chihuahuan Desert is a land of complexity to the landscape. 9 million herd animals, up from 500,000 superlatives. Covering nearly 250,000 The varied geology of the head in 1830. The ranges of the south- square miles (647,500 square kilome Chihuahuan Desert supports a mosaic of west were soon stocked to capacity with ters), it is the largest of the North vegetation communities, ranging from no overflow ranges in case of drought. American deserts. Jutting mountains and desert shrubs such as creosote (Larrea What ranchers could not know is that low basins form a range of habitats tridentata) and tarbush (Flourencia the luxuriant grasslands of the 19th suitable for a broad spectrum of terres cernia) at lower elevations to conifer century were the expression of a cooler, trial and freshwater species. -
Y5 Desert Biome
Y5 Knowledge Organiser Geography: Desert Biome Desert Biome Sahara Desert Jellyfish Key Vocab displaying Desert biomes are dry areas that receive very little The largest hot desert in the world is A description of the average bioluminescence Climate rain. the Sahara. Only the Antartica and weather conditions in a certain Arctic deserts, which are cold deserts, place Deserts can be hot or cold. are bigger than the Sahara. An imaginary circle around the Most hot deserts are found near the equator. The Sahara desert is located in North Africa Equator middle of the Earth The Sahara is the hottest large area on Earth. Irrigation The artificial supply of water to How Some Species Adapt to Around 2.5 million people inhabit the Sahara. Most agricultural land Survive in the Sahara Desert people in the desert are nomads or people who move place to place, but they raise sheep, goats, and Biome Areas of our planet with similar Animals find clever ways to adapt in the Sahara camels. They move in their tents when the grass is climates, landscapes, animals desert. Some are nocturnal, only coming out at eaten in a place. They usually settle in or near an and plants. night when it’s cool and others can go days oasis. Some people raise crops on irrigated land. without drinking. Desert Dry areas that receive very little rain Camels have two rows of eyelashes to protect their eyes from the dust; they have fat in their Species A group of animals, plants or hump so they can go days without food and they other living things that all share can even close their nostrils to stop them inhaling common characteristics.