Dryland ecosystems are often characterized by patchy vegetation and exposed soil. This structure enhances transport of soil resources and seeds through the landscape (primarily by wind and water, but also by animals), thus emphasizing the importance of connectivity – given its relation to the flow of these materials – as a component of dryland ecosystem function. We argue that, as with the fertile‐islands conceptual model before it, the concept of connectivity explains many phenomena observed in drylands. Further, it serves as an organizing principle to understand dryland structure and function at scales from individual plants to entire landscapes. The concept of connectivity also helps to organize thinking about interactions among processes occurring at different scales, such as when processes at one scale are overridden by processes at another. In these cases, we suggest that state change occurs when fine‐scale processes fail to adjust to new external conditions through resource use or redistribution at the finer scale. The connectivity framework has practical implications for land management, especially with respect to decision making concerning the scale and location of agricultural production or habitat restoration in the world's drylands.

Citation for published item:worenoEde ls rersD wF nd xioluD tFwF nd werinoEwrt¡ %nD vF nd iloxD fFF @PHIHA 9lotEsle e'ets on runo' nd erosion long slope degrdtion grdientF9D ter resoures reserhFD RT @RAF HRSHQF Further information on publisher's website: httpsXGGdoiForgGIHFIHPWGPHHWHHUVUS Publisher's copyright statement:worenoEde ls rersD wFD xioluD tFwFD werinoEwrt¡ %nD vF iloxD fFF @PHIHAF lotEsle e'ets on runo' nd erosion long slope degrdtion grdientF ter esoures eserh RT@RAX HRSHQD IHFIHPWGPHHWHHUVUS @hysAF o view the pulished open strtD go to httpsXGGdoiForgG nd enter the hysF Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. [1] In Earth and ecological sciences, an important, crosscutting issue is the relationship between scale and the processes of runoff and erosion. In drylands, understanding this relationship is critical for understanding ecosystem functionality and degradation processes. Recent work has suggested that the effects of scale may differ depending on the extent of degradation. To test this hypothesis, runoff and sediment yield were monitored during a hydrological year on 20 plots of various lengths (1-15 m). These plots were located on a series of five reclaimed mining slopes in a Mediterranean-dry environment. The five slopes exhibited various degrees of vegetative cover and surface erosion. A general decrease of unit area runoff was observed with increasing plot scale for all slopes. Nevertheless, the amount of reinfiltrated runoff along each slope varied with the extent of degradation, being highest at the least degraded slope and vice versa. In other words, unit area runoff decreased the least on the most disturbed site as plot length increased. Unit area sediment yield declined with increasing plot length for the undisturbed and moderately disturbed sites, but it actually increased for the highly disturbed sites. The different scaling behavior of the most degraded slopes was especially clear under high-intensity rainfall conditions, when flow concentration favored rill erosion. Our results confirm that in drylands, the effects of scale on runoff and erosion change with the extent of degradation, resulting in a substantial loss of soil and water from disturbed systems, which could reinforce the degradation process through feedback mechanisms with vegetation.Citation: Moreno-de las Heras, M., J. M. Nicolau, L. Merino-Martín, and B. P. Wilcox (2010), Plot-scale effects on runoff and erosion along a slope degradation gradient, Water Resour. Res., 46, W04503,

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Tree architecture has important consequences for tree performance as it determines resource capture, mechanical stability and dominance over competitors. We analyzed architectural relationships between stem and crown dimensions for 13 dominant Iberian canopy tree species belonging to the Pinaceae (six Pinus species) and Fagaceae (six Quercus species and Fagus sylvatica) and related these architectural traits to wood density, shade tolerance and climatic factors. Fagaceae had, compared with Pinaceae, denser wood, saplings with wider crowns and adults with larger maximal crown size but smaller maximal height. In combination, these traits enhance light acquisition and persistence in shaded environments; thus, contributing to their shade tolerance. Pinaceae species, in contrast, had low-density wood, allocate more resources to the formation of the central trunk rather than to branches and attained taller maximal heights, allowing them to grow rapidly in height and compete for light following disturbances; thus, contributing to their high light requirements. Wood density had a strong relationship with tree architecture, with dense-wooded species having smaller maximum height and wider crowns, probably because of cheaper expansion costs for producing biomechanically stable branches. Species from arid environments had shorter stems and shallower crowns for a given stem diameter, probably to reduce hydraulic path length and assure water transport. Wood density is an important correlate of variation in tree architecture between species and the two dominant families, with potentially large implications for their resource foraging strategies and successional dynamics.

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[1] Dryland vegetation frequently shows self-organized spatial patterns as mosaic-like structures of sources (bare areas) and sinks (vegetation patches) of water runoff and sediments with variable interconnection. Good examples are banded landscapes displayed by Mulga in semiarid Australia, where the spatial organization of vegetation optimizes the redistribution and use of water (and other scarce resources) at the landscape scale. Disturbances can disrupt the spatial distribution of vegetation causing a substantial loss of water by increasing landscape hydrological connectivity and consequently, affecting ecosystem function (e.g., decreasing the rainfall-use efficiency of the landscape). We analyze (i) connectivity trends obtained from coupled analysis of remotely sensed vegetation patterns and terrain elevations in several Mulga landscapes subjected to different levels of disturbance, and (ii) the rainfall-use efficiency of these landscapes, exploring the relationship between rainfall and remotely sensed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. Our analyses indicate that small reductions in the fractional cover of vegetation near a particular threshold can cause abrupt changes in ecosystem function, driven by large nonlinear increases in the length of the connected flowpaths. In addition, simulations with simple vegetation-thinning algorithms show that these nonlinear changes are especially sensitive to the type of disturbance, suggesting that the amount of alterations that an ecosystem can absorb and still remain functional largely depends on disturbance type. In fact, selective thinning of the vegetation patches from their edges can cause a higher impact on the landscape hydrological connectivity than spatially random disturbances. These results highlight surface connectivity patterns as practical indicators for monitoring landscape health.

[1] Nonlinear interactions between physical and biological factors give rise to the emergence of remarkable landform-vegetation patterns. Patterns of vegetation and resource redistribution are linked to productivity and carrying capacity of the land. As a consequence, growing concern over ecosystem resilience to perturbations that could lead to irreversible land degradation imposes a pressing need for understanding the processes, nonlinear interactions, and feedbacks, leading to the coevolution of these patterns. For arid and semiarid regions, causes for concern have increased at a rapid pace during the last few decades due to growing anthropic and climatic pressures that have resulted in the degradation of numerous areas worldwide. This paper aims at improving our understanding of the ecogeomorphic evolution of landscape patterns in semiarid areas with a sparse biomass cover through a modeling approach. A coupled vegetation-pattern formation and landform evolution model is used to study the coevolution of vegetation and topography over centennial timescales. Results show that self-organized vegetation patterns strongly depend on feedbacks with coevolving landforms. The resulting patterns depend on the erosion rate and mechanism (dominance of either fluvial or diffusive processes), which are affected by biotic factors. Moreover, results show that ecohydrologic processes leading to banded pattern formation, when coupled with landform processes, can also lead to completely different patterns (stripes of vegetation along drainage lines) that are equally common in semiarid areas. These findings reinforce the importance of analyzing the coevolution of landforms and vegetation to improve our understanding of the patterns and structures found in nature.Citation: Saco, P. M., and M. Moreno-de las Heras (2013), Ecogeomorphic coevolution of semiarid hillslopes: Emergence of banded and striped vegetation patterns through interaction of biotic and abiotic processes, Water Resour. Res., 49,

Traditional cultivation terraces are one of the most ancient and conspicuous agricultural landscapes in mountain and hilly regions of the Mediterranean basin.Spreading out from Asia, the first terraces in the Mediterranean region date from the Bronze Age and the classical Hellenic and Roman periods, reaching their greatest spatial extent during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Under optimum management, these systems contribute to the conservation of soil and water resources by increasing infiltration and decreasing sediment yield. However, traditional management and cultivation ceased on many terraced landscapes of the northern-shore Mediterranean countries during the twentieth century, with variable results. An extensive bibliographic review and meta-analysis was carried out to explore the main effects of land abandonment of Mediterranean agricultural terraces on local hydrological and geomorphological processes. Our results point to the development of vegetation cover and degradation of terraced structures (e.g., walls, terrace risers, channels) as the main critical factors controlling the hydrological behaviour (i.e., runoff production and hydrological connectivity) of abandoned terrace systems. Severe geomorphological problems, in the form of intense surface erosion, aggressive piping and gullying, occurred under special climatic (semi-arid climate), lithologic (dispersive marls) and structural (high vertical hydraulic gradient) conditions. Dense colonization by vegetation proved to be of major importance for controlling surface erosion. Vegetation, however, showed a limited capacity to control the activity of mass movements in most cases. Mass movements in the form of small soil slips primarily affected long-abandoned terraces in hillslope concavities and valley bottom positions that concentrate (surface and subsurface) water fluxes and show recurrent soil saturation. In humid terraced landscapes characterized by high hillslope gradients and terrace risers, the most devastating effects of mass movements took place in the form of 3 debris slips and terrace cascading landslides triggered by extreme rainfall. A variety of management options (non-intervention, stewardship of natural rewilding processes and active rehabilitation) can be applied, depending on vegetation development potential, site hydro-geomorphic vulnerability and local socio-economic interests. Effective conservation approaches will be required to preserve the environmental, socio-cultural and historical values of these ancient anthropogenic landscapes.