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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Climate Change, Increased Wildfire Frequency, And Rodent-Exclusion Create Opportunities For Exotic Grass Invasion And Alter The Timing And Availability Of Soil Water, Joshua Clark Gilman
Climate Change, Increased Wildfire Frequency, And Rodent-Exclusion Create Opportunities For Exotic Grass Invasion And Alter The Timing And Availability Of Soil Water, Joshua Clark Gilman
Theses and Dissertations
In deserts, global environmental changes, plant community structure, and soil water availability form a complex relationship characterized by direct and indirect relationships and feedbacks. Plant community structure is affected by the establishment and spread of invasive grasses, which form a positive feedback with wildfire. Plant community structure is also controlled by top-down trophic interactions by small-mammals and climate change, which alters the timing and amount of soil water. In deserts, soil water availability mediates the effects of global environmental changes and trophic interactions on plant community structure because it is the limiting resource for plant growth. In order to predict …