While California's acorn eaters suffered, peoples in the Southwestern deserts expanded their diet to include new edible plants.
They show that between 200,000 and 130,000 years ago, a global ice age caused sea levels to fall by up to 100 metres, while the Saharan and Arabian deserts expanded into vast, inhospitable wastelands.
During the past 9 years, gyre deserts expanded 10 to 25 times faster than modeled.
The Oryza grow in diverse locations and conditions, from the wettest areas in the world to the driest deserts, expanding from 53° north to 40° south, from sea level to an altitude of 3,000 m above sea level (Childs 2004; Juliano 2004).
Thousands of scientists the world over warn of rainforests shrinking, deserts expanding, storms intensifying and the planet heating.
The warning signs are all around us, as rivers and lakes shrink, water tables fall, carbon emissions rise, deserts expand, forests shrink, and fisheries collapse.
Filling nearly all of northern Africa, it measures approximately 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometres) from east to west and between 800 and 1,200 miles from north to south and has a total area of some 3,320,000 square miles (8,600,000 square kilometres); the actual area varies as the desert expands and contracts over time.
As the desert has expanded, camel- and cattle-herding Arab nomads have bickered with black African farmers over dwindling supplies of water and pasture.
"It was 'Oh, my God, the desert is expanding!
The desert is expanding; water is becoming more scarce, and so is arable land.
