Nutrient losses in runoff from grassland and shrubland habitats in Southern New Mexico: I. rainfall simulation experiments

Schlesinger, William H.; Abrahams, Athol D.; Parsons, Anthony J.; Wainwright, John

doi:10.1007/bf00992871

Cited by 173 publications

(197 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Furthermore, results showed that woody-dominated sites exhibited an accentuated hydrological response to rainfall leading to greater event organic C losses. Results agree with previous research in dryland environments that have found rainfall-runoff coefficients [Schlesinger et al, 2000], event discharge, and erosion rates to be notably higher from woody compared to grassland environments [Parsons et al, 1996;Wainwright et al, 2000]. Previous monitoring [Turnbull et al, 2010a] over the grass-creosote shrubland ecotone in the basin at the SNWR found higher runoff coefficients on the creosote shrubland site (0.28) compared to the grama grassland site (0.15 for events monitored) and C losses by fluvial erosion to be 6 times higher from creosote-dominated sites .…”

Section: Change In Soil C Dynamics Over Vegetation Transitionssupporting

confidence: 83%

Woody plant encroachment into grasslands leads to accelerated erosion of previously stable organic carbon from dryland soils

et al. 2014

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Drylands worldwide are experiencing rapid and extensive environmental change, concomitant with the encroachment of woody vegetation into grasslands. Woody encroachment leads to changes in both the structure and function of dryland ecosystems and has been shown to result in accelerated soil erosion and loss of soil nutrients. Covering 40% of the terrestrial land surface, dryland environments are of global importance, both as a habitat and a soil carbon store. Relationships between environmental change, soil erosion, and the carbon cycle are uncertain. There is a clear need to further our understanding of dryland vegetation change and impacts on carbon dynamics. Here two grass-to-woody ecotones that occur across large areas of the southwestern United States are investigated. This study takes a multidisciplinary approach, combining ecohydrological monitoring of structure and function and a dual-proxy biogeochemical tracing approach using the unique natural biochemical signatures of the vegetation. Results show that following woody encroachment, not only do these drylands lose significantly more soil and organic carbon via erosion but that this includes significant amounts of legacy organic carbon which would previously have been stable under grass cover. Results suggest that these dryland soils may not act as a stable organic carbon pool, following encroachment and that accelerated erosion of carbon, driven by vegetation change, has important implications for carbon dynamics.

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Section: Change In Soil C Dynamics Over Vegetation Transitionssupporting

confidence: 83%

Woody plant encroachment into grasslands leads to accelerated erosion of previously stable organic carbon from dryland soils

et al. 2014

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“…In semi-arid ecosystems, it is already well-established that hydrology exerts a 28 profound influence over other abiotic components of the landscape, primarily erosion 29 (Wainwright et al, 2000), and the loss or redistribution of key plant-limiting nutrients 30 such as nitrogen (Parsons et al, 2003;Schlesinger et al, 1999;Schlesinger et al, 31 2000). It is therefore argued that semi-arid ecohydrology warrants consideration of 32 ecological processes and the suite of hydrology-driven abiotic processes over space 33 stated that "the biotic pattern of vegetation serves to redistribute key abiotic resources 3 such as energy, water and nutrients in important ways that are critical to the dynamics 4 of the community through space and time".…”

Section: Processes 28mentioning

confidence: 99%

A conceptual framework for understanding semi‐arid land degradation: ecohydrological interactions across multiple‐space and time scales

2008

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15Land degradation is a problem prolific across semi-arid areas world-wide. Despite 16 being a complex process including both biotic and abiotic elements, previous attempts 17 to understand ecosystem dynamics have largely been carried out within the disparate 18 disciplines of ecology and hydrology which has led to significant limitations. Here, an 19 ecohydrological framework is outlined, to provide a new direction for the study of 20 land degradation in semi-arid ecosystems. Unlike other frameworks that draw upon 21 hierarchy theory to provide a broad, non-explicit conceptual framework, this new 22 framework is based upon the explicit linkage of processes operating over the 23 continuum of temporal and spatial scales by perceiving the ecosystem as a series of 24 structural and functional connections, within which interactions between biotic and 25 abiotic components of the landscape occur. It is hypothesised that semi-arid land 26 degradation conforms to a cusp-catastrophe model, in which the two controlling 27 variables are abiotic structural connectivity and abiotic functional connectivity, which 28 implicitly account for ecosystem resilience, and biotic structural and function 29 connectivity. It is suggested therefore that future research must (1) evaluate how 30 abiotic and biotic function (i.e. water, sediment and nutrient loss/redistribution) vary 31 over grass-shrub transitions and (2) quantify the biotic/abiotic structure over grass-32 2 shrub transitions, to (3) determine the interactions between ecosystem structure and 1 function, and interactions/feedbacks between biotic and abiotic components of the 2 ecosystem. 3 KEY WORDS 5Ecohydrology, vegetation transition, structure, function, biotic, abiotic, connectivity, 6 cusp catastrophe 7 8 Introduction 9

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“…With runoff plots being constructed on sloping ground, runoff is harvested downslope. Runoff plots were reported from the Negev Desert (Kidron and Yair, 1997;Kidron et al, 2003;Tadmor and Shanan, 1969;Yair and Lavee, 1985), the southwestern US deserts Schlesinger et al, 2000), the Tabernas Desert (Cantón et al, 2002;Rodríguez-Caballero et al, 2012), and the northwestern deserts of China (Li, 2003). In all these examples, the amount of water reaching the footslope or the bottom part of the plot was measured.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sink plot for runoff measurements on semi-flat terrains: preliminary data and their potential hydrological and ecological implications

Kidron

2014

Journal of Hydrology and Hydromechanics

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Abstract:In arid and semiarid regions where water is the main limiting factor, water redistribution is regarded as an important hydrological process of great ecological value. By providing additional water to certain loci, moist pockets of great productivity are formed, characterized by high plant biomass and biological activity. These moist pockets are often a result of runon. Yet, although runoff may take place on semi-flat undulating surfaces, runoff measurements are thus far confined to slopes, where a sufficient gradient facilitates downslope water harvesting. On undulating surfaces of mounds and depressions, such as in interdunes, no quantification of the amount of water reaching depressions is feasible due to the fact that no reliable method for measuring the runoff amounts in semi-flat terrains is available. The current paper describes specific runoff plots, designed to measure runoff in depressions (sinks). These plots, termed sink plots (SPs), were operative in the Hallamish dunefield (Negev Desert, Israel). The paper presents measurements of runoff yield that were carried out between January 2013 and January 2014 on SPs and compared them to runoff obtained from crusted slope plots and fine-grained (playa) surfaces. The potential hydrological and ecological implications of water redistribution within semi-flat terrains for this and other arid ecosystems are discussed.

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Nutrient losses in runoff from grassland and shrubland habitats in Southern New Mexico: I. rainfall simulation experiments

Cited by 173 publications

References 24 publications

Woody plant encroachment into grasslands leads to accelerated erosion of previously stable organic carbon from dryland soils

Woody plant encroachment into grasslands leads to accelerated erosion of previously stable organic carbon from dryland soils

A conceptual framework for understanding semi‐arid land degradation: ecohydrological interactions across multiple‐space and time scales

Sink plot for runoff measurements on semi-flat terrains: preliminary data and their potential hydrological and ecological implications

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