Desert Ecosystem Management: A Sustainable and Wise Use

Khan, Aleem Ahmed; Ruby, Tahira; Naz, Nargis; Rafay, Muhammad

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-53967-6_5

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 8 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Desert ecosystems are predicted to be one of the ecosystems most vulnerable to global climate change (Khan et al, 2017) and are generally prone to both moisture and temperature fluctuations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The composition of these below‐ground communities is highly sensitive to global climate changes, and such shifts can alter their functioning (Pescador et al., 2022). Desert ecosystems are predicted to be one of the ecosystems most vulnerable to global climate change (Khan et al., 2017) and are generally prone to both moisture and temperature fluctuations. Moreover, global change is predicted to increase the severity and frequencies of drying–rewetting and freezing–thawing cycles in desert ecosystems (Greve et al., 2014; Makhalanyane et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2011), which result in large fluctuations in soil water availability.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Environmental change legacies attenuate disturbance response of desert soil microbiome and multifunctionality

Peng,

Gao,

Pan

et al. 2024

Functional Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Deserts are predicted to be one of the ecosystems most vulnerable to global climate change, with dramatic fluctuations of temperature and water, even over the span of a single day. These previous disturbances could influence the response of the soil microbiome and its functions to subsequent disturbances, which is known as legacy effect. However, how legacy effects shape the response of soil microbiome and its functions to environmental fluctuations (e.g. temperature and water availability) in desert ecosystems remains to be investigated. Here, we firstly exposed desert soils to drought, freezing or their combination, and then followed by a second disturbance, resulting in a temporally full factorial treatment. We found that environmental change legacies affected the response of soil multifunctionality, microbial abundance and richness to second drought and freezing, except for eukaryotic richness. Initial disturbances caused legacy effects on microbial composition and weakened their responses to later disturbances, and these effects were stronger for prokaryotes than eukaryotes. The attenuated response to later disturbances is largely due to that almost half of the taxa affected by the earlier disturbances were also affected by the second disturbances. The phylogenetic depth of these responses varied minimally among the types of disturbances but were more conserved for negative responses, indicating a result of historical adaptation. Moreover, the altered community composition was associated with functional changes in the disturbed soils. These findings will improve our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the legacy impacts of multiple environmental disturbances on desert microbial communities and strengthen our ability to develop management strategies for protection prior to disturbance events. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental change legacies attenuate disturbance response of desert soil microbiome and multifunctionality

Peng,

Gao,

Pan

et al. 2024

Functional Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The desert ecosystem is defined as areas with high evaporation, meager precipitation, and little vegetation related to herbaceous plants and shrubs (Khan et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2022). The desert ecosystem provides services such as sand fixation, oxygen release, nitrogen fixation, soil conservation, water resource control, culture, and biodiversity conservation (Wen et al, 2023).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison Among Some Land Evaluation Methods on Desert Ecosystem in Egypt Case Study: Al-Salheyia Area, East of Delta.

Elwan,

2023

Menoufia Journal of Soil Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Land evaluation methods differ in approach and have not consistently shown positive outcomes outside of the areas where they were developed. The methods of USDA land capability classification (LCC), Storie index, fertility capability classification (FCC), and qualitative desert land potentiality evaluation (QLDLPE) were used to evaluate 41500 Faddans (≈17430 hectares) of agricultural lands in the Al-Salheyia area, east of Delta, Egypt, to see how well they agreed and performed. Several soil parameters relating to pedomorphological, physicochemical, and fertility properties were investigated. Five soil mapping units were determined based on solum depth, texture, soil salinity, and CaCO3 content. The soils ranged in depth from deep to moderately deep, in texture from coarse to fine, in salinity from nonsaline to strongly salinity, and in calcareousness from moderately to strongly calcareous. In terms of LCC, the lands were classified as arable class-III (5900 Faddans; 14.2%), arable class-IV (29450 Faddans; 71%), and nonarable class-V (6150 Faddans; 14.8%). The Storie index classified the soils tested into four categories: fair (5900 Faddans), poor (10250 Faddans), very poor (6500 Faddans), and nonagricultural soils (18850 Faddans). According to the LCC and Storie index, the soils were primarily limited by coarse soil texture, soil salinity, and wetness. Fine textured soils were limited by water logging 'g+', severe salinity 's', and high CaCO3 'b'. In contrast, according to FCC criteria, coarsetextured soils were limited by low ECEC 'e', low OM 'm', and dry season 'd'. Based on QLDLPE ratings, three potentiality classes were created: slight (6150 Faddans), moderate (18600 Faddans), and high (16750 Faddans). Although correlation analysis revealed a relationship between LCC, QLDLPE, and FCC, the Storie index had lower correlation coefficient values. The kappa coefficient (k) was determined between the land evaluation results and observed actual crop yield in tested soils. The statistical study revealed the most significant values of k, ranging from moderate to perfect agreement (0.59-0.94) between the QLDLPE and observed crop production, indicating that this approach is a powerful tool for predicting the natural resources of the desert environment. On the other hand, the Storie index demonstrated a poor concordance between its identified classes and the actual performance of the cultivated soils. As a result, the QLDLPE outperformed other approaches. Other methods of FCC and LCC have similar lower agreement values between their results and observed crop production. This shortage is because the Storie index and LCC gave the lowest score ratings for coarse sand texture and associated attributes. As a result, they classified most of the desert soils under investigation as nonarable lands, even though these soils are already cultivated and produce rich crops in an economically viable manner. Furthermore, the Storie index and LCC have fallen short of covering all soil, socioeconomic, political, and environmental criteria...

show abstract

“…Desert ecosystems are the dominant ecosystem type, covering approximately one-third of the global terrestrial surface area (Bidak et al, 2015;Liang et al, 2019). Deserts can provide ecosystem services associated with windbreaks and sand fixation, soil conservation, biodiversity conservation and culture (Warren, 1981;Khan et al, 2017). Moreover, deserts suffer from various kinds of ecological problems, such as dust storms (Middleton, 2017), land desertification (Shao et al, 2023) and water scarcity (Fang et al, 2015).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation and driving factors of ecological integrity in the Alxa League from 1990 to 2020

Sun,

Cao,

Liu

et al. 2023

Front. Ecol. Evol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Ecological integrity can satisfactorily reflect the comprehensive quality of ecosystems and has become a useful tool for evaluating the ecological environment. Ecological integrity evaluation has been widely applied in various ecosystems. Conducted in the Alxa League, the study established an ecological integrity index based on ecosystem structure, function and resilience and evaluated the ecological integrity of the study area in 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020. Using hotspots spatial analyses, we analyzed the temporal and spatial variation of ecological integrity index during the study period. The main contributing factors affecting ecological integrity were identified with the help of the geographical detector model. Our results showed that: (1) Ecosystem structure, function and resilience in the Alxa League had obvious spatial heterogeneity and barely changed from 1990 to 2020. (2) Half of the area had a poor ecological integrity index, and the decrease in ecological integrity mainly occurred in the Alxa Left Banner. (3) Among the factors affecting the ecological integrity index, land use intensity was the major driving factor, and desertification was a key reason leading to the decrease. Ecological integrity evaluation can increase public awareness of desert conditions and guide policy makers to make reasonable and sustainable policies or strategies to protect and restore desert ecosystems.

show abstract

Desert Ecosystem Management: A Sustainable and Wise Use

Cited by 5 publications

References 8 publications

Environmental change legacies attenuate disturbance response of desert soil microbiome and multifunctionality

Environmental change legacies attenuate disturbance response of desert soil microbiome and multifunctionality

Comparison Among Some Land Evaluation Methods on Desert Ecosystem in Egypt Case Study: Al-Salheyia Area, East of Delta.

Evaluation and driving factors of ecological integrity in the Alxa League from 1990 to 2020

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About