Skip to main content
Advanced Search

Filters: Tags: Atriplex canescens (X)

3 results (7ms)   

View Results as: JSON ATOM CSV
Two native desert shrubs were evaluated for their growth potential and water and nitrogen uptake patterns over a nitrate-contaminated aquifer at a former uranium ore-processing facility in northeastern Arizona. Sarcobatus vermiculatus and Atriplex canescens are obligate and facultative phreatophytes, respectively, that dominate the local desert plant community. The main questions we addressed were: (1) Are these shrubs able to use water or nitrogen from the alluvial aquifer? (2) If so, does grazing interfere with that ability of shrubs? (3) What would be the ideal strategy to take up N from the plume and prevent its expansion and recharge using shrubs? ?18O and ?D isotope signatures from water in plant stem samples...
thumbnail
1. Windblown dust, an environmental problem in many disturbed arid lands, has the potential to affect the physiological performance of desert shrubs. Physiological parameters of gas exchange for three species (Larrea tridentata, Hymenoclea salsola and Atriplex canescens) were measured at a Mojave Desert site, at which both undisturbed and heavily dusted individual shrubs occurred. 2. Maximum rates of net photosynthesis (A) of dusted organs were reduced to 21% of those of control plants in resinous leaflets of Larrea, to 44% in resinous leaves and photosynthetic stems of Hymenoclea, and to 58% in non-resinous C4 leaves of Atriplex, which have vesiculated trichomes. Dusted plants of all three species showed reduced...
A 1.6 ha plot of Atriplex canescens (fourwing saltbush) was established in a desert soil at a former uranium ore-processing plant, near Monument Valley, Arizona, to remediate nitrate and ammonium N contamination. The plants were irrigated to stimulate growth and N uptake. However, NO3? loss from the soil was unexpectedly rapid. Initially, the soil contained approximately 180 mg kg?1 NO3??N distributed at depths up to 4.6 m, but concentrations decreased to 80 mg kg?1 after 41 months. Losses occurred throughout the plot at all soil depths. NH4?N remained unchanged (ca.180 mg kg?1). Soil moisture was generally below field capacity and soil?water flux showed no net downward movement over the course of the study. A salt...
    map background search result map search result map Surface Dust Impacts on Gas Exchange in Mojave Desert Shrubs Surface Dust Impacts on Gas Exchange in Mojave Desert Shrubs