The Ottoman Empire expanded from northwest Anatolia to large areas of the Middle East, north Africa and southeast Europe in the 250 years after 1300 CE, and continued until the early 20th century. Water management was a significant issue in the empire, not least because it covered many dryland areas. Taxation systems supporting the Empire were directly related to crop production and hence water management played a central role...

Teleost fishes account for 96% of all fish species and exhibit a spectacular variety of body forms. Teleost lineages range from deep bodied to elongate (e.g., eels, needlefish), laterally compressed (e.g., ribbonfish) to globular (e.g., pufferfish), and include uniquely shaped lineages such as seahorses, flatfishes, and ocean sunfishes. Adaptive body shape convergence within fishes has long been hypothesized but the nature of...

Large areas of desert grasslands in the southwestern United States have shifted to sparse shrublands dominated by drought‐tolerant woody species over the last 150 yr, accompanied by accelerated soil erosion. An important step toward the understanding of patterns in species dominance and vegetation change at desert grassland–shrubland transitions is the study of environmental limitations imposed by the shrub‐encroachment phenom...

Aim To assess the combined influences of nutrient enrichment, invasive species and climate on assembly processes in natural annual plant communities. Location S outh‐west W estern A ustralia. Methods A comprehensive survey of winter annual plant communities (more than a thousand communities sampled in total) was undertaken across a natural moisture availability gradient in phosphorus ( P )‐limited Y ork gum woodlands exposed t...

The amount of privately conserved land is increasing worldwide. The potential of these areas to contribute to the global conservation of biodiversity is significant, given that statutory protected areas alone will not suffice. Nevertheless, there is still inadequate support for private conservation areas, and further research on appropriate, flexible, and generally applicable incentive measures is necessary. We conducted 25 se...