Population and community development and structure

Desert plants and animals have many peculiar adaptations that enable them to survive long periods of moisture shortage and to take maximal advantage of short, infrequent wet periods.

Perennial plants commonly survive dry times by becoming physiologically inactive. In some cases they remain alive but are desiccated until water becomes available, at which time they rapidly absorb moisture through aboveground parts, swelling and resuming physiological activity. Some plants can absorb dew, which for many is the main water source. Mosses and lichens adopt this strategy, as do some flowering plants, which are sometimes called resurrection plants.

Other desert plants survive dry periods through underground organs such as bulbs, tubers, or rhizomes. These structures are inactive, requiring and using little water until triggered to grow by rain soaking into the soil. They then grow rapidly, using food reserves stored within, flowering and setting seed before soil moisture becomes substantially depleted once more.

Certain plants, including large woody plants and some herbaceous perennials, can remain physiologically active to some extent through dry periods. Plants employ several strategies to carry this off: water storage organs, such as the succulent stems of cacti, euphorbias, and ice plants, hold water until it is needed; very deep root systems reach soil moisture at depth; and certain features, such as leaves of reduced size or hairy or reflective leaves, reduce water loss.

Another typical feature of desert floras is their large proportion of ephemeral plants, which survive dry periods as resistant, dormant seeds. After a rain, the seeds germinate at once and the plants grow quickly, flower early, and complete their reproduction within a few weeks before the soil dries out again. It is primarily plants with this response that cause the deserts to bloom after infrequent storms.

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Asia: Semidesert and desert

Desert animals show many comparable adaptations to infrequent moisture availability in deserts, resulting in little activity during the usually dry times and intense activity in the brief, infrequent wet periods. During dry conditions many desert animals remain underground in holes or burrows in which the air is relatively cool and humid; more than half of desert animals are subterranean in their habits. Some, such as snails, may remain dormant for long periods, while others, such as burrowing mammals, emerge to feed only at night when conditions are cool and much less dehydrating. Reproduction may cease altogether in years of extreme drought, as it does in some lizards.

It is now clear that in several regions desert environments are expanding—a process called desertification. This process may be defined as land degradation in arid, semiarid, or dry, subhumid areas that results from various factors including climatic variation and human activities. In areas where the vegetation is already under stress from natural or anthropogenic factors, periods of drier than average weather may cause degradation of the vegetation. If the pressures are maintained, soil loss and irreversible change in the ecosystem may ensue, so that areas formerly under savanna or scrubland vegetation are reduced to desert.

There is some evidence that removal of vegetation can also affect climate, causing it to become drier. Bare ground reflects more incoming solar energy and does not heat up as much as ground containing vegetation. Thus, the air that is near the ground does not warm up as much and its vertical movement is reduced, as is atmospheric cooling necessary for condensation and ultimately precipitation to occur.

The main regions currently at risk of desertification are the Sahel region lying to the south of the Sahara, parts of eastern, southern, and northwestern Africa, and large areas of Australia, south-central Asia, and central North America. The arid regions with the longest history of agriculture—from North Africa to China—have generally less well-vegetated deserts. Plant-based desert classification systems from these regions contrast with those from places without such a long history of human usage, such as Australia and the Americas, probably because degradation of the vegetation has been occurring in the Old World regions for a much longer time. Systems incorporating desert vegetation types in Australia and the Americas recognize and include vegetation types with a prominent woody plant (shrub) component and tend to exclude some less arid but heavily altered vegetation types. The present extent of deserts in the Old World is thought to be significantly greater than it would be had human impact not occurred. Support for this view is found in various places, such as the several-thousand-year-old rock art from the central Sahara that illustrates cattle and wildlife in regions now unable to support these creatures.

Biological productivity

In the highly stressful desert environment, productivity is generally very low; however, it is also highly variable from time to time and from place to place. (For a full discussion of productivity, see biosphere: Resources of the biosphere.)

Temporal variations are caused by the occasional input of moisture; this allows the vegetation to grow for only a short period before arid conditions resume. Spatial variations are due in part to the structural patchiness of the vegetation itself, as surface soil beneath shrubs is several times more fertile than it is between shrubs. Shrub roots contribute to this process by retrieving nutrients from the deep soil and depositing them in litter on the soil surface beneath the shrub canopy. Windblown litter that accumulates around shrubs and the microbial flora found in soil shaded by the shrub canopy also create patchy, fertile areas. Because human disturbance of desert vegetation commonly involves the partial or total removal of the shrub cover, the impact of human disturbance on these ecosystems is significant.