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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/138042
Extreme climatic events shape arid and semiarid ecosystems
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Climatic changes associated with the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) can have a dramatic impact on terrestrial ecosystems worldwide, but especially on arid and semiarid systems, where productivity is strongly limited by precipitation. Nearly two decades of research, including both short‐term experiments and long‐term studies conducted on three continents, reveal that the initial, extraordinary increases in primary productivity percolate up through entire food webs, attenuating the relative importance of top‐down control by predators, providing key resources that are stored to fuel future production, and altering disturbance regimes for months or years after ENSO conditions have passed. Moreover, the ecological changes associated with ENSO events have important implications for agroecosystems, ecosystem restoration, wildlife conservation, and the spread of disease. Here we present the main ideas and results of a recent symposium on the effects of ENSO in dry ecosystems, which was convened as part of the First Alexander von Humboldt International Conference on the El Niño Phenomenon and its Global Impact (Guayaquil, Ecuador, 16-20 May 2005).
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HOLMGREN, Milena, et al. Extreme climatic events shape arid and semiarid ecosystems. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 2006. Vol. 4, num. 2, pags. 87-95. ISSN 1540-9295. [consulted: 13 of October of 2026]. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/138042