Patch Types Research Articles

Analysis of the spatial differentiation and scale effects of the three-dimensional architectural landscape in Xi'an, China.

Three-dimensional landscape patterns are an effective means to study the relationship between landscape pattern evolution and eco-environmental effects. This paper selects six districts in Xi’an as the study area to examine the spatial distribution characteristics of the three-dimensional architectural landscape in the city’s main urban area using three-dimensional information on the buildings in 2020 with the support of GIS. In this study, two new architectural landscape indices—landscape height variable coefficient and building rugosity index—were employed in landscape pattern analysis, whilst a system of rigorous and comprehensive three-dimensional architectural landscape metrics was established using principal component analysis. A mathematical model of weighted change of landscape metrics based on the objective weighting method was applied to carry out scale analysis of the landscape patterns. Spatial statistical analysis and spatial autocorrelation analysis were conducted to comprehensively study the differentiation of three-dimensional architectural landscape spatial patterns. The results show that the characteristic scale of the three-dimensional landscape pattern in Xi’an’s main urban area is around 8 km. Moreover, the three-dimensional landscape of the buildings in this area is spatially positively correlated, exhibiting a high degree of spatial autocorrelation whilst only showing small spatial differences. The layout of the architectural landscape pattern is disorderly and chaotic within the second ring, whilst the clustering of patch types occurs near the third ring. Moreover, the building density in the Beilin, Lianhu, and Xincheng districts is large, the building height types are rich, and the roughness of the underlying surface is high, such that these are key areas to be improved through urban renewal. The height, volume, density, morphological heterogeneity, and vertical roughness of the architectural landscape vary amongst functional areas within the study area. This paper is the first to apply the study of spatial heterogeneity of three-dimensional landscape patterns to Xi’an. It does so in order to provide a quantitative basis for urban landscape ecological design for urban renewal and the rational planning of built-up areas, which will promote the sustainable development of the city’s urban environment.

Habitat Specialization by Wildlife Reduces Pathogen Spread in Urbanizing Landscapes.

AbstractUrban areas are expanding globally with far-reaching ecological consequences, including for wildlife-pathogen interactions. Wildlife show tremendous variation in their responses to urbanization; even within a single population, some individuals can specialize on urban or natural habitat types. This specialization could alter pathogen impacts on host populations via changes to wildlife movement and aggregation. Here, we build a mechanistic model to explore how habitat specialization in urban landscapes affects interactions between a mobile host population and a density-dependent specialist pathogen that confers no immunity. We model movement on a network of resource-stable urban sites and resource-fluctuating natural sites, where hosts are urban specialists, natural specialists, or generalists that use both patch types. We find that for generalists, natural and partially urban landscapes produce the highest infection prevalence and mortality, driven by high movement rates at natural sites and high densities at urban sites. However, habitat specialization protects hosts from these negative effects of partially urban landscapes by limiting movement between patch types. These findings suggest that habitat specialization can benefit populations by reducing infectious disease transmission, but by reducing movement between habitat types it could also carry the cost of reducing other movement-related ecosystem functions, such as seed dispersal and pollination.

Earthworms Modulate Impacts of Soil Heterogeneity on Plant Growth at Different Spatial Scales.

Soil heterogeneity (uneven distribution of soil nutrients and/or other properties) is ubiquitous in nature and can greatly affect plant growth. As earthworm activity can influence nutrient redistribution in the soil, we hypothesize that earthworms may alter the effect of soil heterogeneity on plant growth and this effect may depend on the scale of soil heterogeneity. To test these hypotheses, we grew the clonal grass Leymus chinensis in three soil treatments (heterogeneous large vs. heterogeneous small patch vs. homogeneous soil treatment) with or without earthworms [i.e., Eisenia fetida Savigny (Lumbricidae, epigeic redworm)]. In the heterogeneous treatments, the soil consisted of patches with and without 15N-labeled litter (referred to as high- and low-quality patches, respectively), and in the homogeneous treatment, the soil was an even mixture of the two types of soil patches. Biomass of L. chinensis was significantly higher in the high- than in the low-quality patches, showing the foraging response; this foraging response occurred at both scales and under both earthworm treatments. Compared to the homogeneous treatment, the heterogeneous large patch treatment increased biomass of L. chinensis without earthworms, but decreased it with earthworms. In contrast, biomass of L. chinensis in the heterogeneous small patch treatment did not differ from that in the homogeneous treatment, irrespective of earthworms. Belowground biomass was much greater in the heterogeneous small than in the heterogeneous large patch treatment without earthworms, but it did not differ between these two scale treatments with earthworms. In the heterogeneous treatments, soil 15N was greater in the high- than in the low-quality patches, but this effect became much weaker with than without earthworms, suggesting that earthworm activity homogenized the soil. We conclude that earthworms can change the impact of soil heterogeneity on plant growth via homogenizing the soil, and that this effect of earthworms varies with patch scale. Such scale-dependent interactive effects of soil heterogeneity and earthworms could be a potential mechanism modulating plant community structure and productivity.

Influence of mental workload on motion perception: A direct comparison of luminance-based and contrast-based stimuli

In order to study the impact of increased mental workload on motion detection, twenty-four observers performed a motion discrimination task in which they had to detect odd moving patches. Two types of moving patches were used, namely luminance-based and contrast-based patches. For both types of patches, the motion discrimination task was performed with and without an additional N-Back task aimed at increasing the mental workload. The dual task decreased discrimination performance for both types of patches, but the difference was significantly larger for contrast-based patches, i.e., for second-order motion stimuli, both as an absolute and relative increment. This suggests that motion discrimination requires larger cognitive resources for contrast-based than for luminance-based stimuli, thereby hinting at the higher complexity of the cognitive mechanisms underlying second-order motion detection.

PATCHES FOR ACNE TREATMENT: AN UPDATE ON THE FORMULATION AND STABILITY TEST

The purpose of this article review was to find out more about acne patch formulations and test stability. The method used is searching data from various articles based on Google Scholar, Elsevier, and Molecules with the keywords "Acne vulgaris, acne treatment, acne patches, and types of acne patches” and with a range of years between 2011 and 2021. Based on the type of acne, acne patches are divided into several types, namely microneedle patches, acne medicine patches, and hydrocolloid patches. The results obtained in this review show that the most commonly used acne patch is the medicated acne patch (hydrogel patches), because of its waterproof property to protect acne from secondary infection, it can absorb liquid inside and flatten acne and is cheaper compared to microneedles. The hydrogel patch is also stable at a temperature of 40±2 °C and a relative humidity (RH) of 75±5% for 6 mo of storage.

Dural tear repair surgery comparative analysis: a stitch in time saves nine

PurposeA dural tear is a common iatrogenic complication of spinal surgery associated with a several post-operative adverse events. Despite their common occurrence, guidelines on how best to repair the defect remain unclear. This study uses five post-operative outcomes to the compare repair methods used to treat 106 dural tears to determine which method is clinically favourable.MethodsData were retrospectively collected from Southampton General Hospital’s online databases. 106 tears were identified and grouped per repair method. MANOVA was used to compare the following five outcomes: Length of stay, numbers of further admissions or revision surgeries, length of additional admissions, post-operative infection rate and dural tear associated neurological symptoms. Sub-analysis was conducted on patient demographics, primary vs non-primary closure and type of patch. Minimal clinically important difference (MCID) was calculated via the Delphi procedure.ResultsAge had a significant impact on patient outcomes and BMI displayed positive correlation with three-fifth of the predefined outcome measures. No significant difference was observed between repair groups; however, primary closure ± a patch achieved an MCID percentage improvement with regards to length of original stay, rate of additional admissions/surgeries and post-operative infection rate. Artificial over autologous patches resulted in shorter hospital stays, fewer readmissions, infections and neurological symptoms.ConclusionThis study reports primary closure ± dural patch as the most efficient repair method with regards to the five reported outcomes. This study provides limited evidence in favour of artificial over autologous patches and recommends that dural patches be used in conjunction with primary closure.Level of evidence IDiagnostic: individual cross-sectional studies with consistently applied reference standard and blinding.

Artificial temporary non-crop habitats support parasitoids on arable land

Non-crop habitats are important to support biodiversity and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes. Whereas perennial and managed non-crop habitats have known benefits, temporary non-crop patches within arable fields (field defects) have been poorly studied. We created artificial field defects (unsown patches) in oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) fields and evaluated their effects on parasitoid assemblages at two crop growth stages. Moreover, we compared unmanaged patches with those sown with flowering plants (Onobrychis vicifolia) and crop controls and analyzed the influence of position within the field (edge or interior), and total flower availability. Altogether, we found almost 200 morphospecies of hymenopteran parasitoids (140 in unsown patches, 147 in Onobrychis patches, and 81 in controls), including important enemies of crop pests. Species richness and abundance were higher on both types of unsown patches than in controls but were not affected by Onobrychis sowing. The differences between unsown patches and controls were larger during oilseed ripening, suggesting that these temporary habitats can offer important resources during crop senescence. Parasitoid species composition differed between controls and unsown patches, indicating that species not linked to the crop could also benefit from these habitats. Finally, unsown patches with higher flower availability supported higher species richness, total abundance, and abundance of three key species during OSR flowering. Thus, newly created unmanaged habitats have the potential to increase biodiversity despite their small size, although increasing flower resources can boost their benefits. Unsown patches can be easily created by switching-off sowing, facilitating their adoption by farmers. Future studies on pest control levels and comparisons with other agri-enviromental schemes would help to elucidate the cost-benefit of unsown patches.

In situ wound sprayable double-network hydrogel: Preparation and characterization

In clinical settings the wound-dressing was required easy to use and can match the wound area immediately, at the same time they need to have the properties of hemostats, anti-inflammation and promoting wound healing. To get an ideal wound dressing, we developed a type of gel-like wound adhesive patch from spraying double-network hydrogel, which own the properties of self-antibacterial and can promote wound healing. By spraying, the gel-like wound adhesive patch can match the wound area immediately and form a gel-film in 10 s. Sodium carboxymethyl cellulose as pH sensitive materials accelerated the speed to form the gel-film and enhanced ductility of the wound adhesive patch. In vitro experiments show that, this gel-like wound adhesive patch can promote cell proliferation and reduce cell apoptosis. In vivo studies show that, compared with commercialized wound dressings in clinic using, the spraying gel-like wound adhesive patch from our work has a better effect on wound healing. In conclusion, the spraying gel-like wound patch in our work is easy to use and can form a gel-film match on wound area in a short time, also it has the properties of hemostats, anti-inflammation and promoting wound healing. Its feasibility for mass production shows a good potential for commercial use.

Joint Feature-Space and Sample-Space Based Heterogeneous Feature Transfer Method for Object Recognition Using Remote Sensing Images with Different Spatial Resolutions.

To improve the classification results of high-resolution remote sensing images (RSIs), it is necessary to use feature transfer methods to mine the relevant information between high-resolution RSIs and low-resolution RSIs to train the classifiers together. Most of the existing feature transfer methods can only handle homogeneous data (i.e., data with the same dimension) and are susceptible to the quality of the RSIs, while RSIs with different resolutions present different feature dimensions and samples obtained from illumination conditions. To obtain effective classification results, unlike existing methods that focus only on the projection transformation in feature space, a joint feature-space and sample-space heterogeneous feature transfer (JFSSS-HFT) method is proposed to simultaneously process heterogeneous multi-resolution images in feature space using projection matrices of different dimensions and reduce the impact of outliers by adaptive weight factors in the sample space simultaneously to reduce the occurrence of negative transfer. Moreover, the maximum interclass variance term is embedded to improve the discriminant ability of the transferred features. To solve the optimization problem of JFSSS-HFT, the alternating-direction method of multipliers (ADMM) is introduced to alternatively optimize the parameters of JFSSS-HFT. Using different types of ship patches and airplane patches with different resolutions, the experimental results show that the proposed JFSSS-HFT obtains better classification results than the typical feature transferred methods.

Ecological Health Assessment of Chinese National Parks Based on Landscape Pattern: A Case Study in Shennongjia National Park.

Assessing the health of the ecosystem based on the landscape pattern of national parks can facilitate policy makers in formulating more targeted conservation policies to better manage national park ecosystems. To analyze the landscape patterns and characteristics of the national park, the ecosystem health evaluation index system of the national park was constructed using the vigor-organization-resilience (VOR) model to evaluate the health status. In this study, the Shennongjia National Park in China was selected as a case study area to be assessed using the index system. The results revealed that the patches of construction land and farmland are the largest in number and the most complex in shape, reflecting the obvious fragmentation of construction land and farmland patches. All patch types in this national park were evenly distributed. The results of the analysis showed that the comprehensive index of national park heath, according to the VOR model, is 0.74, indicating that the ecosystems in this study area were in a good state of health. Ecosystems in strictly protected areas of this park had the highest ecosystem health index levels, while the traditional utilization areas had the lowest. Ecosystem health levels were characterized by significant spatial agglomeration characteristics, with high-high aggregation distribution areas, mainly clustered in strictly protected areas, and low-low aggregation distribution, mainly clustered in traditional utilization areas and marginal areas. This study provided a set of ecosystem health assessment systems and their practical use in China’s newly established national parks.

Sustainable UV-Crosslinkable Acrylic Pressure-Sensitive Adhesives for Medical Application.

This study aimed to investigate the potential of photoreactive acrylate patches as systems for transdermal drug delivery, in particular, using more renewable alternatives and more environmentally friendly synthesis routes of transdermal patches. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop a transdermal patch containing ibuprofen and investigate its performance in vitro through the pigskin. Transparent patches were prepared using four acrylate copolymers with an incorporated photoinitiator. Two types of transdermal patches based on the photocrosslinking acrylic prepolymers with isobornyl methacrylate as biocomponent and monomer increasing Tg (“hard”) were manufactured. The obtained patches were characterized for their adhesive properties and tested for permeability of the active substance. It turns out that patches whose adhesive matrix is photoreactive polyacrylate copolymers have a higher cohesion than patches from commercial adhesives, while the modification of the copolymers with isobornyl methacrylate resulted in an improvement in adhesion and tack. This study demonstrates the feasibility of developing photoreactive acrylic-based transdermal patches that contain biocomponents that can deliver a therapeutically relevant dose of ibuprofen.

Determination of the representative elementary area (REA) of biocrusts: A case study from the Hilly Loess Plateau region, China

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are mixed communities of cyanobacteria, lichens and mosses in different ratios, contributing to important ecological functions in arid and semiarid regions worldwide. Biocrusts are spatially variable, and the variability in biocrust composition and coverage is scale-dependent. The following question can then be asked: What is the appropriate spatial scale for observing ecological functions? Without clarifying this issue, we cannot fully understand the ecological functions of biocrusts. The key to answering this question is to determine a threshold area, or representative elementary area (REA). Accordingly, we analyzed red–green–blue (RGB) images of 90 biocrust plots (2.0 m × 2.0 m) from nine revegetated grasslands in the Hilly Loess Plateau region of China. The variability in biocrust composition and coverage across the plot sizes was studied by gradually expanding the plot size from 0.01 m2 to 4.00 m2. The results showed that as the plot sizes increased from 0.01 m2 to 4.00 m2, the number of biocrust types logarithmically increased. Biocrust patches of a particular type (such as moss, cyanobacteria or lichen) were often characteristic of a plot size of 0.01 m2, whereas plot sizes larger than 0.25 m2 supported mixed biocrusts of multiple patch types. The variability in coverage of mixed biocrusts logarithmically decreased with increasing plot sizes. The coverage of mixed biocrusts maintained an approximately constant value after a certain critical plot size was reached (1.00 m2 in this study). Our data indicated that REAs of mixed biocrusts exist at the slope scale. The REAs of mixed biocrusts were 0.5–1.0 m2, 1.5–2.5 m2 and 3.0–3.8 m2, with alpha (α) values of 0.1, 0.05 and 0.01, respectively. The size of the REAs on the north-facing slope was larger than that on the south-facing slope, and the patch density of biocrusts had an important influence on the REAs. The results of this study could provide a method for determining the REAs of mixed biocrusts and guide surveys and experimental layouts.

Compressive fatigue behavior of external patch repaired carbon/epoxy composites

AbstractThis work involves an experimental investigation of the external patch repaired woven carbon fiber‐reinforced polymer laminates under load controlled constant amplitude compressive fatigue loading. The specimens of parent laminates with stacking sequence [0/45]s and [45/0]s were both repaired with two types of precured patches viz. [0]2 and [45]2 representing high stiff and low‐stiff cases. Digital image correlation and acoustic emission were employed to obtain the insight to the development of distinctive failure modes. The observations during the tests reveal a slow increase in the displacement for most part of the life followed by a rapid increase in the displacement signifying the failure due to fatigue. The examination of failed specimens reveal failure through hole for drilled (with hole) specimens compared to failure away from repaired zone indicating the significant reinforcement provided by external patch repair under cyclic loading. From life aspect, the drilled specimens possess a significantly lesser life (zero to few hundred cycles) compared to the patch repaired and pristine specimens (of order of few thousand cycles) highlighting the suitability of the external patch repair to restore the fatigue performance under compressive loading.

An Open-Access Database for the Evaluation of Cardio-Mechanical Signals From Patients With Valvular Heart Diseases.

This paper describes an open-access database for seismo-cardiogram (SCG) and gyro-cardiogram (GCG) signals. The archive comprises SCG and GCG recordings sourced from and processed at multiple sites worldwide, including Columbia University Medical Center and Stevens Institute of Technology in the United States, as well as Southeast University, Nanjing Medical University, and the first affiliated hospital of Nanjing Medical University in China. It includes electrocardiogram (ECG), SCG, and GCG recordings collected from 100 patients with various conditions of valvular heart diseases such as aortic and mitral stenosis. The recordings were collected from clinical environments with the same types of wearable sensor patch. Besides the raw recordings of ECG, SCG, and GCG signals, a set of hand-corrected fiducial point annotations is provided by manually checking the results of the annotated algorithm. The database also includes relevant echocardiogram parameters associated with each subject such as ejection fraction, valve area, and mean gradient pressure.

Parallel Calculation Method of Patch Area Landscape Art Index Based on Surface Coverage Data

Aiming at the problem of slow convergence in the parallel calculation of patch area landscape art index, a parallel calculation method of patch area landscape art index based on land cover data was proposed. Firstly, patch type area index, patch connectivity index, patch number index, and fragmentation index were selected as patch area landscape art spatial staggered pattern indexes to conduct characteristic analysis and establish a 3D visual reconstruction model with actual colors. Then, the coordinate points of the landscape space staggered pattern are transformed into three-dimensional visual coordinate points to realize the reconstruction of landscape art space staggered pattern in patch area. The aerial landscape image of patch area is preprocessed and input into GPU to build a Gaussian difference pyramid model. The feature points of the patch area in the aerial landscape image are calculated by the parallel computing process, and the patch boundary in the aerial landscape image is determined. The landscape perimeter of the patch area was calculated according to the boundary. The experimental results show that the complete convergence time of the horizontal axis error and the vertical axis error is 2.13 s and 1.81 s, respectively, and the absolute error and relative error of the perimeter measurement are controlled below 0.60 m and 1.00%, respectively.

Pikas burrowing activity promotes vegetation species diversity in alpine grasslands on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

The burrowing activity of plateau pikas (Ochotona curzoniae; hereafter, pikas) may profoundly influence vegetation species composition on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP). Although significant efforts have been made to examine the relationship between vegetation species composition and pikas disturbance, our knowledge regarding the direct influence of pikas activity on vegetation species diversity is still limited. We conducted field observations on pikas burrows and surrounding vegetation patches at 23 alpine grassland sites to investigate this effect. When compared to vegetation patches, pikas burrowing activity decreased soil hardness, thus improving water infiltration, while caused the less reduction of soil nutrition and soil moisture when compared to adjacent vegetation patches. Vegetation species composition on pikas burrows significantly differed from that on vegetation patches. Common plant species between pikas burrows and vegetation patches were fewer than three in all types of grasslands, and ten species were found exclusively on pikas burrows. The total species richness, including both pikas burrows and vegetation patches, was approximately 1.3–2.5 times higher than that on each single patch type (pikas burrows or vegetation patches). A conceptual framework was proposed to synthesize the evolution of vegetation species composition under a disturbance regime resulting from pika’s burrowing. Overall, we concluded that pika’s burrowing activity enhanced vegetation species richness by loosening the soil, creating safe sites for seed settling and germination, which provided a novel habitat for vegetation invasion.

The role of ecosystem engineers in shaping the diversity and function of arid soil bacterial communities

Abstract. Ecosystem engineers (EEs) are present in every environment and are known to strongly influence ecological processes and thus shape the distribution of species and resources. In this study, we assessed the direct and indirect effect of two EEs (perennial shrubs and ant nests), individually and combined, on the composition and function of arid soil bacterial communities. To that end, topsoil samples were collected in the Negev desert highlands during the dry season from four patch types: (1) barren soil; (2) under shrubs; (3) near ant nests; or (4) near ant nests situated under shrubs. The bacterial community composition and potential functionality were evaluated in the soil samples (14 replicates per patch type) using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing together with physico-chemical measures of the soil. We have found that the EEs affected the community composition differently. Barren patches supported a soil microbiome, dominated by Rubrobacter and Proteobacteria, while in EE patches Deinococcus-Thermus dominated. The presence of the EEs similarly enhanced the abundance of phototrophic, nitrogen cycle, and stress-related genes. In addition, the soil characteristics were altered only when both EEs were combined. Our results suggest that arid landscapes foster unique communities selected by patches created by each EE(s), solo or in combination. Although the communities' composition differs, they support similar potential functions that may have a role in surviving the harsh arid conditions. The combined effect of the EEs on soil microbial communities is a good example of the hard-to-predict non-additive features of arid ecosystems that merit further research.

Integrating Ecosystem Patch Contributions to Stream Corridor Carbon Dioxide and Methane Fluxes

AbstractThe heterogeneity of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) sources within and across watersheds presents a challenge to understanding the contributions of different ecosystem patch types to stream corridor and watershed carbon cycling. Changing hydrologic connections between corridor patches (e.g., streams, vernal pools, hillslopes) can influence stream corridor greenhouse gas emissions, but the spatiotemporal dynamics of emissions within and among corridor patches are not well‐quantified. To identify patterns and sources of carbon emissions across stream corridors, we measured gas concentrations and fluxes over two summers at Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory, NC. We sampled CO2 and CH4 along four stream channels (including flowing and dry reaches), adjacent vernal pools, and riparian hillslopes. Stream CO2 and CH4 emissions were spatially heterogeneous. All streams were sources of CO2 to the atmosphere (median = 97.2 mmol m−2d−1) but were sources or sinks of CH4 depending on location (−0.19 to 4.57 mmol m−2d−1). CO2 emissions were lower during the drier of two sampling years but were stable from month to month in the drier summer. CO2 and CH4 emissions also varied by both corridor and patch type; the presence of a vernal pool in the corridor had the strongest impact on emissions. Vernal pool patches emitted more CO2 and CH4 (246 and 1.95 mmol m−2d−1, respectively) than their adjacent streams. High resolution sampling of carbon fluxes from patches within and among stream corridors improves our understanding of the connections between terrestrial, riparian, and aquatic zones in a watershed and their contributions to overall catchment carbon emissions.

Low-Profile Wideband Millimeter-Wave Circularly Polarized Antenna With Hexagonal Parasitic Patches

A low-profile wideband circularly polarized (CP) millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) L-shaped dipole antenna with hexagonal parasitic patches is presented in this letter. Two types of hexagonal parasitic patches are placed round the rotationally symmetrical L-shaped dipole to enhance the impedance and axial ratio (AR) bandwidth. Based on this antenna element, a substrate integrated waveguide-fed 2 × 2 subarray with sequential rotate feeding technique is designed to further improve AR bandwidth. Finally, a 4 × 4 CP array is designed to further enhance the gain. The measurement shows the proposed array can achieve the impedance bandwidth of 27.7%, the AR bandwidth of 28.5%, and the peak gain of 17.85 dBic while maintaining a lower profile. Therefore, the design scheme will be suitable for 5G mm-Wave communications and satellite communication systems.

Divergent effects of biological soil crusts on soil respiration between bare patches and shrub patches under simulated rainfall in a desert ecosystem in Northwest China

The important role of biological soil crusts (biocrusts) in determining the soil carbon balance in dryland ecosystems under future climate change has been widely explored. However, when assessing the effects of biocrusts on soil respiration, few studies have considered biocrusts in bare soil patches and shrub soil patches. A field experiment was performed with five simulated rainfall addition events (0, 5, 15, 25, and 40 mm) in shrub and bare soil patches in June (early growing season, EGS), July (middle growing season, MGS) and September (late growing season, LGS) in 2016 and 2017. Our objective was to examine whether biocrusts at shrub and bare soil patches have the same effect on soil respiration under altered rainfall regimes. The results showed that the removal of biocrusts from bare patches reduced soil respiration by 15 % after rainfall amounts of 5–40 mm and increased the subsurface soil temperature and decreased the soil moisture after various rainfall treatments. However, in shrub patches, the removal of biocrusts led to a significant increase in soil respiration of 57 % and subsequent increases in subsurface soil temperature and moisutre. The discrepancy in the soil respiration response between the two types of patches might be attributable to the increase in soil infiltration after biocrust removal, with a greater stimulating increase in soil carbon emissions stimulated in the shrub patches than in the bare patches due to more the greater amounts of roots distributed under the former shrub patches. Our results indicate that the destruction of biocrusts in shrub patches may reduce the ability of biocrust ecosystems to become a net carbon sinks, with potentially negative consequences for ecosystem function and sustainability in water-limited regions.