Specifically, preservation of desert and greater use of xeric landscaping rather than mesiscaping may help preserve this ecologically and economically vital group of organisms.
Residential yards that utilized xeric landscaping had a more diverse bee community (with proportionally more rare species) than did mesic (turf grass) yards, particularly in late summer (September).
First, using xeric landscaping as a base, we created eight tree planting scenarios (from 0% canopy cover to 30% canopy cover) for the neighborhood to characterize the relationship between canopy cover and daytime cooling benefit of trees.
Our study provides the first habitat suitability models for desert amphibians and provides important information for conservation biologists and land managers concerned with preserving amphibian diversity in xeric landscapes.
Its predicted predominance along a broad belt of xeric landscapes at higher latitudes is not surprising, as the association of An. coluzzii with aridity has been noted previously, at least in West Africa (della Torre et al. 2005; Costantini et al. 2009), and is consistent with its superior resistance to desiccation stress relative to An. gambiae (Lee et al. 2009b).
Additionally, with a xeric upland landscape, adjacent vegetation is naturally sparse and this would reduce some complexity due to competition and other biological interactions.
About 60% of surviving midstory trees (10 20 cm diameter at breast height (DBH)) and 25% of overstory trees (⩾20 cm DBH) on sub-xeric and intermediate landscape positions experienced crown dieback.
For gardeners that means the "X" word -- xeric, or water-wise, landscaping.
Pollen from burial samples, in sum, suggests that the landscape was a mosaic of xeric and wet environments.
In a second set of simulations, we ran ENVI-met for nine combined tree planting and landscaping scenarios (mesic, oasis, and xeric) with regular roofs and cool roofs under current climate conditions and two climate change projections.
