Roberto Lázaro

TL;DR: In this paper, a rainfall time-series (1967-1997) in a typical Mediterranean semi-arid area in SE Spain of great ecological interest was studied, including rainfall volume, number of rain-days and one-day maximum rainfalls.

TL;DR: This synthesis highlights the importance of biotic attributes (e.g. species richness) in maintaining fundamental ecosystem processes such as primary productivity, illustrates how N deposition and grazing pressure are impacting ecosystem functioning in drylands worldwide, and highlights the role of the traits of woody species as drivers of their expansion in former grasslands.

TL;DR: The dramatic reduction in biocrust cover with warming will lessen the capacity of drylands to sequester atmospheric CO2, and may act synergistically with other warming-induced effects, such as the increase in soil CO2 efflux and the changes in microbial communities to alter C cycling in drylands, and to reduce soil C stocks in the mid to long term.

TL;DR: The growing body of research on BSCs available from semi-arid areas of Spain is reviewed, highlighting its importance for increasing the authors' knowledge on this group of organisms and how it can be use to guide management and restoration efforts.

TL;DR: Understorey vegetation in patches of Retama sphaerocarpa shrubs in semi-arid environments is dependent on the overstorey shrub life history and the eAect of the canopy on understorey species diversity in the field and its relationships with the soil seed bank is investigated, suggesting that the soil Seed Bank is rather uniform and that the shrub canopy strongly selects which species appear in theunderstorey.