分类： 环境科学技术及资源科学技术 >> 环境科学技术基础学科 提交时间： 2022-11-08 合作期刊: 《干旱区科学》
摘要：
Many arid areas have very severe climates with extremely high summer temperatures, strong solar radiation, and a lack of drinking water during the driest season. Therefore, antelopes living in arid areas are forced to solve two main problems: avoiding overheating and maintaining water balance. Generally, there are physiological, morphological, and behavioral mechanisms for antelope adaptations to arid environments. Among the mechanisms, behavioral adjustments have a minimal cost and are activated first, while physiological mechanisms are the most energetically costly and involve adaptations to high temperatures when other mechanisms are insufficient. In previous publications, some examples of the antelope behavioral adaptations have been described only rarely, while in this review, we try to clarify all available information on the adaptations of antelopes living in arid areas to their native environments, paying particular attention to behavioral adjustments. Behavioral mechanisms, especially daily activity, diet and microclimate selection, and migrations, are so important and commonly used by antelopes in natural conditions, in which physiological mechanisms are usually not involved. Antelopes adjust their behaviors according to environmental changes so successfully that purely physiological mechanisms are discovered under laboratory conditions; for example, adaptive heterothermia or selective brain cooling phenomenon is difficult to observe in their natural habitats. This review provides a better understanding of the main behavioral mechanisms of antelope adaptations to arid environments and allows for the identification of the key factors for successful conservation of antelopes in their natural habitats.
分类： 地球科学 >> 水文学 提交时间： 2022-03-15 合作期刊: 《干旱区科学》
摘要： Water shortage is one bottleneck that limits economic and social developments in arid and semi-arid areas. As the impacts of climate change and human disturbance intensify across time, uncertainties in both water resource supplies and demands increase in arid and semi-arid areas. Taking a typical arid region in China, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, as an example, water yield depth (WYD) and water utilization depth (WUD) from 2002 to 2018 were simulated using the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model and socioeconomic data. The supply-demand relationships of water resources were analyzed using the ecosystem service indices including water supply-demand difference (WSDD) and water supply rate (WSR). The internal factors in changes of WYD and WUD were explored using the controlled variable method. The results show that the supply- demand relationships of water resources in Xinjiang were in a slight deficit, but the deficit was alleviated due to increased precipitation and decreased WUD of irrigation. WYD generally experienced an increasing trend, and significant increase mainly occurred in the oasis areas surrounding both the Junggar Basin and Tarim Basin. WUD had a downward trend with a decline of 20.70%, especially in oasis areas. Water resources in most areas of Xinjiang were fully utilized and the utilization efficiency of water resources increased. The water yield module in the InVEST model was calibrated and validated using gauging station data in Xinjiang, and the result shows that the use of satellite-based water storage data helped to decrease the bias error of the InVEST model by 0.69108 m3. This study analyzed water resource supplies and demands from a perspective of ecosystem services, which expanded the scope of the application of ecosystem services and increased the research perspective of water resource evaluation. The results could provide guidance for water resource management such as spatial allocation and structural optimization of water resources in arid and semi-arid areas.
分类： 地球科学 >> 地理学 提交时间： 2021-01-22 合作期刊: 《干旱区科学》
摘要： The gradual shrinkage of the Aral Sea has led to not only the degradation of the unique environments of the Aral Sea, but also numerous and fast developing succession processes in the neighborhood habitats surrounding the sea. In this study, we investigated the vegetative succession processes related to the Aral Sea shrinkage in the Eastern Cliff of the Ustyurt Plateau in Republic of Uzbekistan, Central Asia. We compared the results of our current investigation (2010–2017) on vegetative communities with the geobotany data collected during the 1970s (1970–1980). The results showed great changes in the mesophytic plant communities and habitat aridization as a result of the drop in the underground water level, which decreased atmospheric humidity and increased the salt content of the soil caused by the shrinkage of the Aral Sea. In the vegetative communities, we observed a decrease in the Margalef index (DMg), which had a positive correlation with the poly-dominance index (I-D). The main indications of the plant communities' transformation were the loss of the weak species, the appearance of new communities with low species diversity, the stabilization of the projective cover of former resistant communities, as well as the appearance of a new competitive species, which occupy new habitats.
分类： 环境科学技术及资源科学技术 >> 环境科学技术基础学科 提交时间： 2019-10-26 合作期刊: 《干旱区科学》
摘要： Biomass allocation patterns among plant species are related to their adaptive ecological strategies. Ephemeral, ephemeroid and annual plant life forms represent three typical growth strategies of plants that grow in autumn and early spring in the cold deserts of China. These plants play an important role in reducing wind velocity in the desert areas. However, despite numerous studies, the strategies of biomass allocation among plant species with these three life forms remain contentious. In this study, we conducted a preliminary quadrat study during 2014–2016 in the southern part of the Gurbantunggut Desert, China, to investigate the allocation patterns of above-ground biomass (AGB) and below-ground biomass (BGB) at the individual level in 17 ephemeral, 3 ephemeroid and 4 annual plant species. Since ephemeral plants can germinate in autumn, we also compared biomass allocation patterns between plants that germinated in autumn 2015 and spring 2016 for 4 common ephemeral species. The healthy mature individual plants of each species were sampled and the AGB, BGB, total biomass (TB), leaf mass ratio (LMR) and root/shoot ratio (R/S) were calculated for 201 sample quadrats in the study area. We also studied the relationships between AGB and BGB of plants with the three different life forms (ephemeral, ephemeroid and annual). The mean AGB values of ephemeral, ephemeroid and annual plants were 0.806, 3.759 and 1.546 g/plant, respectively, and the mean BGB values were 0.106, 4.996 and 0.166 g/plant, respectively. The mean R/S value was significantly higher in ephemeroid plants (1.675) than in ephemeral (0.154) and annual (0.147) plants. The mean LMR was the highest in annual plants, followed by ephemeroid plants and ephemeral plants, reflecting the fact that annual plants allocate more biomass to leaves, associated with their longer life span. Biomass of ephemeral plants that germinated in autumn was significantly higher than those of corresponding plants that germinated in spring in terms of AGB, BGB and TB. However, the R/S value was similar in plants that germinated in autumn and spring. The slope of regression relationship between AGB and BGB differed significantly among the three plant life forms. These results support different biomass allocation hypotheses. Specifically, at the individual level, the AGB and BGB partitioning supports the allometric hypothesis for ephemeroid and annual plants and the isometric hypothesis for ephemeral plants.
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