High-resolution climatic analysis and southwest biogeography. [Bouteloua eriopoda; Larrea tridentata; prosopis glandulosa]
Meteorologists and climatologists have produced significant new data on the fluid dynamics of the atmosphere, thus allowing biologists to examine more closely the cause-effect relation between the large-scale structure of the atmosphere and the dominant patterns of global biogeography. The inability to characterize the high-frequency variability of the weather has constrained such efforts. A method that allows year-to-year patterns of weather variability to be characterized in the contexts of global warming and cooling trends is applied in a combined analysis of long-term monthly weather records and data from an ecological monitoring project in southern New Mexico. The analysis suggests a cause-effect hypothesis of recent desertification in the North American Southwest. The links between the atmosphere and the biosphere are based on the fundamentally different responses to specific weather regimes of semidesert grasses with a C/sub 4/ photosynthetic pathway and desert shrubs with a C/sub 3/ photosynthetic pathway. The hypothesis appears to be of sufficient generality to explain the complex, but well-documented, floristic changes that have occurred in the same region since the last glacial maximum.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Arizona, Tucson
- OSTI ID:
- 5713149
- Journal Information:
- Science (Washington, D.C.); (United States), Vol. 232
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Comparative importance of overland runoff and mean annual rainfall to shrub communities of the Mojave Desert. [Larrea tridentata; Ambrosia dumosa]
Related Subjects
CLIMATES
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS
GRASS
SHRUBS
POPULATION DYNAMICS
C4 SPECIES
CALVIN CYCLE SPECIES
DESERTS
NEW MEXICO
PACIFIC OCEAN
REGIONAL ANALYSIS
SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION
SURFACE WATERS
TEMPERATURE DISTRIBUTION
TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS
ARID LANDS
DISTRIBUTION
ECOSYSTEMS
FEDERAL REGION VI
NORTH AMERICA
PLANTS
SEAS
USA
510100* - Environment
Terrestrial- Basic Studies- (-1989)
500100 - Environment
Atmospheric- Basic Studies- (-1989)