Onset Of Desertification Research Articles

Description of two new Australian species of Abantiades Herrich-Schäffer (Lepidoptera: Hepialidae) and females of two further species with notes on their biogeography.

Abantiades cephalocorvus sp. nov. and Abantiades tembyi sp. nov. are described, along with the previously undescribed females of A. macropusinsulariae Simonsen, 2018 and A. pallida Simonsen, 2018. All of these species belong to a triforked Abantiades Herrich-Schäffer clade that is loosely centred around the Nullarbor and other arid regions of Australia. We explore DNA barcodes (mtDNA COI gene) from these and other Abantiades and discuss their significance for species recognition. The species distributions are entirely or largely allopatric and we discuss their origins from a widespread common ancestor that was likely distributed over inland and coastal regions in the mid- to late-Mesozoic before the onset of desertification. Notes on new distributional data for all of the known species in this clade are included.

Albedo estimated from remote sensing correlates with ecosystem multifunctionality in global drylands

Monitoring ecosystem functioning is a significant step towards detecting changes in ecosystem attributes that could be linked to land degradation and desertification in drylands worldwide. Remote sensing-based vegetation indices (VIs) and land surface albedo are two favorite indicators to monitor desertification process due to their close relationship with ecosystem status and to their increasing applicability over multiple spatiotemporal scales. While VIs are routinely used to monitor ecosystem attributes and functions such as vegetation cover and productivity, no previous study has evaluated whether remote sensing-measured albedo is related to the simultaneous provision of multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality) in global drylands. In this study, we evaluated the correlation of six albedo metrics (shortwave black-sky albedo, shortwave white-sky albedo, visible black-sky albedo, visible white-sky albedo, near-infrared black-sky albedo and near-infrared white-sky albedo) and two VIs (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)) with multifunctionality indices related to carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycling measured in 61 dryland ecosystems from all continents except Antarctica. We found a negative relationship between land surface albedo and multifunctionality. Black-sky albedo had a stronger correlation with multifunctionality than white-sky albedo. Visible black-sky albedo showed the strongest correlation with multifunctionality (MUL, −0.314), as well as with functions related to carbon (CCY, −0.216) and nitrogen cycling (NCY, −0.410), while near-infrared (−0.339) and shortwave black-sky albedo (−0.325) showed stronger correlations with functions related to phosphorus cycling (PCY) than visible black-sky albedo (−0.233) did. VIs showed significant positive correlations with MUL, CCY, and NCY, and the magnitudes were higher than those observed between albedo metrics and the multifunctionality indices. However, VIs were not correlated with PCY, which had significant correlations with both shortwave and near-infrared albedo. Though the magnitudes of the correlations observed were not high, which may result from the wide variability in soil and vegetation types in our dataset, our findings indicate that remotely sensed albedo correlates to multifunctionality, which has been linked to alternative states in global drylands. As such, albedo has the potential to monitor changes in dryland ecosystem functioning, which can inform us about the onset of desertification in these areas.

Rich Spatiotemporal Dynamics of a Vegetation Model with Noise and Periodic Forcing

The growth of vegetation is undeniably subject to random fluctuations arising from environmental variability and internal effects due to periodic forcing. To address these issues, we investigated a spatial version of a vegetation model including seasonal rainfall, noise, and diffusion. By numerical simulations, we found that noise can induce the pattern transition from stationary pattern to other patterns. More specifically, when noise intensity is small, patch invasion is induced. As noise intensity further increases, chaotic patterns emerge. For the system with noise and seasonal rainfall, it exhibits frequency-locking phenomena. Patterns transition may be a warning signal for the onset of desertification and thus the obtained results may provide some measures to protect vegetation, such as reducing random factors or changing irrigation on vegetation.