Note: Cover -- Preface to the First Edition -- Preface to the Second Edition -- Contents -- Plates -- 1 Introduction -- 1.1 General introduction -- 1.2 What creates a desert? -- 1.3 Deserts have low precipitation and high variability in precipitation -- 1.4 How old are deserts? -- 1.5 Deserts are created by a lack of precipitation and not high temperatures -- 1.6 Aridity indices -- 1.7 What denies rainfall to deserts? -- 1.8 Global change and deserts -- 2 Abiotic Factors -- 2.1 Precipitation -- 2.1.1 Rainfall -- 2.2 Temperature -- 2.2.1 Hot deserts -- 2.2.2 Cold deserts -- 2.3 Declines in pan evaporation -- 2.4 Geology -- 2.4.1 Desert landscapes -- 2.5 Fire -- 2.6 Wind erosion -- 3 Morphological and Physiological Adaptations of Desert Plants to the Abiotic Environment -- 3.1 Classifications of desert plants -- 3.2 Types of photosynthesis -- 3.3 Biological soil crusts -- 3.4 Annual plants -- 3.4.1 Desert versus mesic annual species -- 3.4.2 Seed germination and dispersal strategies -- 3.4.3 Why is long-range dispersal rare in desert plants? -- 3.4.4 Delayed germination -- 3.4.5 Seed heteromorphism -- 3.5 Grasses, forbs, and shrubs/perennials -- 3.5.1 Clonality -- 3.5.2 Photosynthesis and stomatal opening -- 3.5.3 Heat shock proteins -- 3.5.4 Specific leaf area -- 3.5.5 Leaf pubescence -- 3.5.6 Fog-an unusual water source -- 3.5.7 Grasses -- 3.6 Geophytes -- 3.6.1 Hysteranthy and its consequences -- 3.7 Stem and leaf succulents -- 3.7.1 Stem succulents -- 3.7.2 Leaf succulents -- 3.8 Halophytes -- 3.9 Phreatophytes -- 3.9.1 Hydraulic lift -- 4 Morphological, Physiological, and Behavioural Adaptations of Desert Animals to the Abiotic Environment -- 4.1 Evaders and evaporators -- 4.1.1 Snails -- 4.1.2 Frogs -- 4.1.3 Rodents -- 4.1.4 Spider burrows and termite mounds -- 4.1.5 Physiological mechanisms of controlling heat gain. , 4.2 Adaptations to handle unique situations -- 4.2.1 Salt glands in birds and reptiles -- 4.2.2 Mammals that consume halophytes -- 4.2.3 Animals in temporary pools -- 4.3 Endurers -- 4.3.1 Ants -- 4.3.2 Large mammals -- 4.4 Removing the effects of phylogeny -- 4.4.1 Insects (tenebrionid beetles) -- 4.4.2 Birds -- 4.4.3 Marsupial mammals -- 5 The Role of Competition and Facilitation in Structuring Desert Communities -- 5.1 Plant communities -- 5.1.1 Annual plant communities -- 5.1.2 Interactions among desert shrubs -- 5.1.3 Fairy circles, heuweltjies, and mima mounds-competition, herbivory, or self-organization? -- 5.1.4 Facilitation and nurse-plant effects -- 5.2 Competition between animals -- 5.2.1 Patch scale -- 5.2.2 Habitat selection models -- 5.3 Indirect interactions: keystone species and apparent competition -- 5.3.1 Keystone species -- 5.3.2 Short-term apparent competition -- 6 The Importance of Predation and Parasitism -- 6.1 Direct mortality -- 6.2 Predation risk -- 6.3 Apparent predation risk -- 6.4 Priority effects -- 6.5 Spiders -- 6.6 Scorpions -- 6.7 Visually hunting predators -- 6.8 Snakes, scent-hunting predators -- 6.9 Keystone predation -- 6.10 Animal parasites and parasitoids -- 6.10.1 Parasites -- 6.10.2 Parasitoids -- 7 Plant-Animal Interactions in Deserts -- 7.1 Herbivory -- 7.1.1 Grazing effects on species composition -- 7.1.2 Long-term studies of the effects of large mammals on arid vegetation -- 7.1.3 Effects of herbivory on relationships among plant functional types -- 7.1.4 Is Australia a special case?-a meta-analysis -- 7.1.5 Effects of insect herbivory on desert plants -- 7.2 Pollination -- 7.2.1 Yucca-yucca moth mutualism -- 7.2.2 The senita cactus-senita moth obligate mutualism -- 7.3 Seed dispersal and seed predation -- 7.3.1 Myrmecochory -- 7.3.2 Diplochory: using two mechanisms to disperse. , 7.4 Are these coevolved systems? -- 7.4.1 Senita and yucca systems -- 7.4.2 Why Negev flowers are often red -- 7.4.3 Dorcas gazelle-lily system -- 7.4.4 Wood rats and their toxic diets -- 8 Desert Food Webs and Ecosystem Ecology -- 8.1 Do deserts have simple food webs? -- 8.1.1 Can we scale up from two-species interactions to desert ecosystems? -- 8.2 Food webs -- 8.2.1 Polis and Ayal's problems with food-web models -- 8.3 Interactions among habitats-spatial subsidies -- 8.4 Effects of precipitation, nutrients, disturbances, and decomposition -- 8.4.1 Effects of precipitation -- 8.4.2 Effects of nutrients -- 8.4.3 Disturbances -- 8.4.4 Decomposition -- 9 Biodiversity and Biogeography of Deserts -- 9.1 Are deserts species-poor? α, β, and γ diversity patterns -- 9.1.1 Plants -- 9.1.2 Animals -- 9.2 Productivity-diversity relationships in deserts -- 9.3 Convergence and divergence of desert communities -- 9.3.1 Community-wide character displacement -- 9.4 Large-scale patterns in desert biogeography -- 9.4.1 Plants -- 9.4.2 Animals -- 10 Human Impacts and Desertification -- 10.1 The sensitive desert ecosystem: myth or reality? -- 10.2 Pastoralism is the most important use of desert lands -- 10.2.1 Oscillations of vegetation and herbivore populations -- 10.2.2 Woody plant encroachment -- 10.2.3 Invasive species -- 10.2.4 Global climate changes -- 10.3 Pumping aquifers: a problem of less water and more salinity -- 10.4 When is it desertification? The importance of reversibility -- 11 Conservation of Deserts -- 11.1 Are deserts worth conserving? -- 11.2 Conservation of desert species or habitats -- 11.2.1 Umbrella species -- 11.2.2 Keystone species -- 11.2.3 Focal species -- 11.2.4 Single populations -- 11.2.5 SLOSS or metapopulations -- 11.2.6 Conserving the entire habitat -- 11.3 The 3 Rs: reintroduction, recolonization, and revegetation. , 11.3.1 Asiatic wild ass -- 11.3.2 Arabian oryx -- 11.3.3 Recolonization by the American black bear -- 11.3.4 Revegetation -- 11.4 Genotype by environment interactions and intraspecific variability -- 11.5 Who gets to pay for this conservation and how is it controlled? -- 11.6 People are also part of the desert environment -- 11.7 Conclusions -- References -- Index.