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The inhabitants of the arid plain of northwest San Luis harvest rainwater in impoundments (small dams) to support cattle and goat production in native forests. This ancient technology has been complemented, in the last two decades, by aqueducts that transport water from the central mountains of San Luis (Nogolí dam). In this study, we 1) present an approach to social perceptions and local knowledge about impoundments; 2) implement technological improvements in six of them to increase the efficiency of water harvesting and storage, and 3) characterize the temporal dynamics of the regional water resource (impoundments and Nogolí dam). To achieve this, we conducted surveys with impoundment users, installed water level sensors, hired road machinery for improvements, and analyzed existing databases. The survey results showed that the impoundments, far from being mere water reservoirs, constitute the cultural heritage of rural families. The application of technological improvements significantly increased the maximum average water level of the enhanced impoundments, from 144 to 220 cm (P<0.05), resulting in a 113% increase in the average maximum stored volume, reaching 1282 m³ (P<0.05). The daily water level of the improved impoundments was higher than control ones (on average, 110 vs. 62 cm, respectively; P<0.01). The water supply from the impoundments exhibited complementarities concerning the temporal dynamics of the Nogolí dam in terms of the speed of response to rainfall and the time lag between filling and emptying. This study provides key knowledge to achieve ‘water sovereignty’ in the arid plain of northwest San Luis by proposing the enhancement of existing impoundments and the use of the aqueduct as a complement to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and aims: In the Atacama Desert certain plant species can be found in small and isolated areas, limited to regions with water availability. The degree of connectivity within and between these natural populations depends on their pollen and seed dispersal abilities, as well as on the barriers imposed by the landscape. Prosopis flexuosa is a species of high economic and ecological importance included in the algarrobo Conservation and Management program. The main objective of this work is to analyze the genetic variability and mating system of P. flexuosa in the Atacama Desert. M&M: Genetic diversity parameters as well as the mating system were evaluated in a natural population (Quillagua) based on microsatellite molecular markers. The hierarchical distribution of genetic variance and kinship coefficients were analyzed. Results: The results indicate high levels of genetic diversity (HE = 0.67-0.65; Ar = 3.8- 3.7), high outcrossing rates (t m = 0.97, t s = 0.85), low biparental inbreeding (11.6%) and multiple paternity. The proportion of full sibs decreases when considering seeds from the same or different pods (89→16%). Only the variance between families is significant (p < 0.001) and mean kinships estimated show that progenies within families are not only constituted by half sibs. Conclusions: The results are discussed and related to the limited pollen and seed dispersal and their implication for the management of this resource. The study of the mating system parameters of this Chilean desert population suggests that the low population density and the environment fragmentation would not be influencing their mating capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to investigate possible meanings of the desert in the novel The Savage Detectives (1998) by Roberto Bolaño. Starting from a look directed at the exegesis of the desert as both a natural landscape and a rhetorical image, we seek to understand the latent role that this space has in the utopian journey undertaken by Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano in search of the poet Cesárea Tinajero. From this, it is possible to assess a critique of modernity in Bolaño's work based on a representation of the paradoxical Latin American cultural scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

La presente investigación versa sobre los poemarios Los versos de la madera (2004) y Ritos de Jaima (2012) del escritor saharaui Limam Boisha y el documental Nostalgia de la luz (2010) del chileno Patricio Guzmán. Argumento que ambos autores elaboran una poética del desierto como reducto de la memoria íntima, familiar y nacional. Se privilegia un análisis posthumanista del desierto con el propósito de esbozar su función en la transmisión transgeneracional de la memoria. Metodológicamente, el ensayo responde a la interrogante: ¿Pueden estas poéticas del desierto servir para la revisión de los marcos geográficos tradicionales en la crítica hispanófona global? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Loneliness is a classic theme of spirituality that has now become a serious social problem. The context of late modernity, both at the level of culture and social dynamics, not only increases its incidence, but also gives it particular characteristics that spirituality has to take up as a challenge. Called to discover the «sonorous solitude» of the mystics, we have to walk the paths of solitude as a human wound that is more problematic today than in other periods of history. The dialogue of spirituality with our culture can help to make them more humanly passable while at the same time responding to this new social scourge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dung beetles can influence seedling emergence and survival. However, the direction and magnitude of this effect will depend on the functional traits of the dung beetle community and on the prevailing environmental conditions. We studied the role of dung beetles in seed dispersal of Prosopis flexuosa DC. in an arid environment. We conducted an experimental study to assess how different dung beetle species differ in their effectiveness as secondary seed dispersers. To evaluate this question, we selected four species belonging to three functional groups: lifters, tunnelers, and rollers. Dung beetles removed 0.7%-7.5% of the seeds embedded in cow dung. The net effect of beetles on seedling emergence and survival varied markedly among species: Malagoniella puncticollis (roller) had neutral effects on seedling emergence and positive in their survival. Sulcophanaeus imperator, Digitonthophagus gazella (tunneler) and Eucranium arachnoides (lifters) species had positive effect on seedling emergence. However, the effect of S. imperator on seedling survival was negative, and those of D. gazella and E. arachnoides, neutral. Our results indicate that although dung beetles remove few seeds of P. flexuosa, their main role consisted in producing changes in micro-environmental conditions for the seeds that remained in the dung pile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting with the liberal projects of modern nation-state formation, our territory had to be desertified to imagine, build and sustain this process. To challenge these policies and their narratives, it becomes necessary to rewrite new fictions. We begin by examining the figure of the taperas, legacy of the 19th century modernizing project, as a dynamic component of the landscape and, at the same time, as a critical device waiting to be questioned and exhumed as a surviving trace. In this way, the encounter among the poetic traces in the Quiñihual railway station, the vital traces that inhabit the LincoRln desert's Tapera del desierto and the map that emerges between them, interrupt and destabilize the story imposed in the territory of the province of Buenos Aires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following paper explores how literary criticism questions the relationship between desert, emptiness and imagination based on the modern notion of landscape. From the theoreticalcritical contributions of F. Rodríguez, J. Andermann, J. Uriarte, we wonder about the aesthetic operations that expose the contemporary crisis of the landscape form and its critical drifts around the imagination. To this end we will discuss César Aira's An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter (2015), a return to the desert that imagines and thereby recommences the conformation of a new territory, but also the invention of a gaze that reconfigures the senses of landscape and its relationship with nature. Between hallucination and trance, Aira's fiction rehearses new relationships around perception and discovers a series of procedures that imagine another beginning and shake the basis of the foundation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a comparative reading of the two "Meribah narratives" of the Pentateuch is made, analysing the specificities of each one and the different theological claims made by these two episodes, one in Exod 17, 1-7, the other in Num 20,1-13. For achieving this goal, narrative criticism is a useful tool, particularly the categories of "plot" and "theme". A thorough comparison between these two miraculous episodes, in which Moses provides water to the thirsty Israelites from a rock in the wilderness, will show that the theological issues of the presence of God between his people and the unveiling of His holiness are the key points in each of these episodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The detection of native natural enemies that can use Cactoblastis cactorum as a host is relevant after its invasion of North America. We detected wasps (Scelionidae) parasitizing eggs of Melitara cf. junctolineella (a closely related cactus moth in the Phycitini) in Bustamante, Nuevo Leon, northeastern Mexico. This is the first report of Scelionidae parasitizing eggs of phycitine cactus moths. The capability of this wasp to parasitize C. cactorum eggs should be investigated. La detección de enemigos naturales nativos que pueden utilizar a Cactoblastis cactorum como hospedero, es relevante tras su invasión a Norteamérica. Detectamos avispas (Scelionidae) parasitando huevos de Melitara cf. junctolineella (una polilla del cactus en Phycitini estrechamente relacionada con C. cactorum) en Bustamante, Nuevo Leon, noreste de México. Este es el primer reporte de Scelionidae parasitando huevos de polillas del cactus (Phycitini). Debe investigarse la capaci-dad de esta avispa para parasitar los huevos de C. cactorum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the causes of spread of overabundant species plays a key role in deciphering their invasion mechanisms, while providing managers with targeted management actions to control their spread. The objective of this research was to quantify the spread of Hooded Crow (Corvus cornix) in Israel and to elucidate the causes of its spread. Long-term occurrence data of Hooded Crow sightings were used to analyze the species range expansion rate. This dataset was analyzed with a range of climatic, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and land-use variables. Analysis of opportunistic presence-only data, corrected for possible sampling biases, illustrated traveling waves of eastward expansion, from the Mediterranean coast into Israel's central mountain range, and a star-like pattern of spread southward into the northwestern Negev desert. A diffusion equation model revealed an expansion rate of 1.60 km year-1. Land-use analysis revealed an affinity of sighted individuals toward urban and low vegetation land types. Hooded Crow sightings were positively correlated with annual precipitation, with the remaining variation being negatively correlated with precipitation during the wettest quarter. Species distribution modeling suggested that the species has established new populations and is currently expanding its range. The slow rate of dispersal is consistent with a neighborhood diffusion pattern, corresponding to the species life-history traits. Human-managed environments, including low-cover agricultural fields, provide constant available food and nesting trees, allowing the Hooded Crow to thrive all year-round. Precipitation may aid in enhancing Hooded Crow tolerance toward other unfavorable physical conditions. In light of these new findings, management plans ought to recognize centers of Hooded Crow activity as indicators of highly disturbed native wildlife communities. Also, our findings emphasize the need to establish agri-environmental schemes (AES) in such areas, which would raise community resistance to overabundant species. As AES are currently not in place on a national scale, and since their creation has the power to improve landscape connectivity of native species, this last component is especially necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The occasion (1987), a novel whose intrigue is located in the last decades of the 19th century, investigates the progressive disenchantment of the Santa Fe plain in the process of modernization based on the successive failures of the spiritual in its different versions -magic, mystery and fortune telling- and the deviation of certain romantic and sublime coordinates of the landscape. For this, the writing flies over and juxtaposes, among many others, Darwin's geological fiction, the theosophical and nationalist concerns of Lugones 'strange forces, Prado's expeditionary tales and Blanes' famous painting of yellow fever. Before the advance of the blind force of capitalist progress, we will try to observe how some of these heterogeneous desert fictions mutate and juxtapose, and in particular, how "magic" still resists in the precariousness of bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Andean world is underexploited for tourism due to both the lack of infrastructure and the lack of its development as a product. Still, tourism exists and is, in some places, overwhelming. As such, it establishes itself in a double market game: 1) it offers hotel infrastructures and tours that are clearly a product for foreign tourists, and 2) it recreates a whole discourse on heritage. The Andean tourism market has three self-contained aspects, which address 1) the indigenous world, either the historical or the present, although without confusing them or making a connection between them, 2) the colonial world, and 3) a high quality natural environment. This work, based on a critical decolonial view and ethnography developed from field work, analyzes the game between discourse and social practice from the point of view of both visitors and locals, thereby recreating some of its paradoxes and contradictions. This analysis, obviously from a decolonial and political view, attempts to recover the epistemology of the south. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to investigate about the relationships between art, poetry, land, landscape and territory from the visual pieces of the artist, poet and teacher Mercedes Resch, a resident of Cura Malal, a rural town in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, a solid geographical and historical witness to the long process of national modernization that, from the beginning of the 20th century to its current neoliberal present, has exposed the land of that place to a violent patriarchal desertification campaign. The work of Mercedes Resch will allow us to explore, on the contrary, a landscape full of latent life forms that permanently resist the historical threat of the great drought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deserts, like any geographic setting, are not sites where geopolitical dramas simply unfold or "touch down"; rather, they actively constitute geopolitical orders. This article shows how taking deserts rather than states as an entry point can provide a unique lens on geopolitics, state making, and empire. Investigating the political lives of deserts requires asking how they are imagined, narrated, and connected across space and time, and with what effect. To do so, I consider one case of desert-to-desert connection: a long but little-known history of exchange between individuals and institutions in Arizona and the Arabian Peninsula. Taking one example from this history, I show how the "desert" as an environmental imaginary figured in the University of Arizona Environmental Research Laboratory's joint greenhouse and desalting plant, which was initiated in Abu Dhabi in the late 1960s. Primarily drawing from archival research in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Arizona, I also show how this project fit into shifting geopolitical relations in the Arabian Peninsula's colonial relations, the rise of the UAE as an independent state, and the role of experts working in the service of broader political agendas of the state and the academy, as well as their own self-interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and aims: The transit of vehicles within protected areas constitutes a threat to the natural heritage that must be evaluated. The high operational cost of monitoring these activities makes it necessary to develop quick and simple evaluation alternatives that allow having a first parameter of trends. Using freeware and basic techniques, I propose a study case to evaluate the increase in vehicle traces for the period 2004-2018 and their potential impact on the vegetation of the Loma de Las Tapias protected area, San Juan, Argentina. M&M: Using pre-existing floristic zoning and two sets of satellite images (2004-2018), vehicle traces were quantified with a grid, and these squares were categorized according to: absence of traces; old traces (2004); new traces (2018) and relapsing traces (2004-2018) on the different floristic units. Results: Currently, from the 223 squares that constitute the grid, only 35% showed no vehicular traces, while 13.9% had only old ones, 30% relapsing traces and the remaining 21.1% had new vehicular traces. The increase during the evaluated period was uniform in all floristic units. Conclusions: The proposed methodology was simple and fast and allowed detecting the increase of vehicular traces in the area, establishing reference values for subsequent evaluations. The observed increase of traces emphasizes the need to focus on conservation efforts and to incorporate new thematic layers to enrich the management of the protected area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the evening of January 9th, 2020, an adult female of Sicarius thomisoides was found under a rock feeding on a gecko Phyllodactylus gerrhopygus. The observation was made at Mamiña, Tamarugal province in northern Chile. This find is the first documented case of a sicariid preying on a vertebrate. Specifically, this event corresponds to a particular case of intraguild predation, since these species are insectivorous and use similar microhabitats in northern Chile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solar radiation, winds and cover vegetation can affect nest construction decisions in birds; for example, the orientation of their entrance. In this study, the nest entrance orientation of rufous hornero (Furnarius rufus) in a subtropical desert site from Northern Argentina was examined. It was evaluated whether solar radiation and winds influence the mean orientation of nests with abundant upper vegetation cover and of those with little or no upper vegetation cover. Nests with abundant upper vegetation cover showed a randomly defined nest entrance orientation, suggesting that solar radiation and winds are not relevant in nest construction. Nests with little or no upper vegetation cover showed a non-random entrance, southeastern oriented, which would avoid direct solar radiation. Thus, nest with little or no upper vegetation cover were oriented towards prevailing southern humid winds as to increase cooling inside the nest. This work emphasizes the importance of including nest vegetation cover as a variable that may affect nest orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genus Liolaemus presents great diversity among the current tetrapods. It is the second genus with the highest number of valid species described of the Iguana infraorder. In this study, we described a new species of sand lizard from the coastal lomas of Quilca, La Chira and Ocoña that belongs to the subgenus Eulaemus and group of Liolaemus montanus, all in the province of Camaná, department of Arequipa, Peru. To determine the taxonomic status of this new organism, we analyzed morphological, molecular and geographical characters. The morphological characters allowed the characterization and diagnosis of the new species, the molecular data was used to make a Bayesian inference, and the geographic data served to determine potential distribution areas. This lizard diverges from the other species of the Liolaemus montanus group for its small to medium size, several sets of morphological characters, folidosis and color pattern. It is also the only species of the genus where the males have a pattern of lateral spots of rounded shape with dark border and green interior, from the armpits to the middle of the body. Additionally, the molecular phylogenetic results made with the Cyt-b gene indicate that it has no direct relationship with the phenetically similar species described for the group; nevertheless, there is a relationship with geographically close populations, which has not been properly described. Finally, it was determined that this lizard has a very marked endemism and its populations are not abundant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Territorial representations have been fundamental for the formation of modern Nation-State. This article analyzes the ways some cartographic productions disseminated during the Argentine Nation-State formation and contributed to create hegemonic image of the country. More specifically, it studies the mechanisms by which those representations defined the Pampean-Patagonian region as a desert, that is to say, as a differentiated space of the nation. This work reflects on the process of unmarking Argentinian identity and marking indigenous otherness by considering the thesis in which the concept of desert in Argentina involves an historical and political way of asking about the social relationship with indigenous people. In this way, it seeks to contribute to the recognition and the historical contextualization of the Argentine space-temporal process of collective identification and control of sociocultural diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thylamys bruchi is a small and endemic marsupial from Argentina which inhabits the Monte Desert. It presents nocturnal and scansorial habits (i.e. uses terrestrial and arboreal strata) and its diet is omnivorous with a tendency to insectivory, regardless of the fluctuations in food's availability. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feeding strategy of T. bruchi seasonally, analyzing the selection of prey and the trophic niche breadth. Fieldwork was carried out at the Ñacuñan Man and Biosphere Reserve, Mendoza, during the wet and dry season of 2014 and 2016. This study focused on assessing the composition of arthropods in the diet. For this purpose, we measured prey consumption and their availability in the environment in the different seasons. T. bruchi's diet presented little seasonal variability, with 70% arthropods and 30% plant material. Eight orders and one family of arthropods were identified, with Lepidoptera being the most consumed ítem. T. bruchi selected Lepidoptera (adults and larvae) and Orthoptera in all seasons. Trophic niche breadth was greater in seasons with less prey availability and narrower when their abundance was greater. Although T. bruchi presents a generalist feeding strategy, in face of seasonal changes in prey abundance, it incorporates most of the available items and partially modifies the composition of its diet by exploiting more abundant items. This flexibility and the consumption of high energy food items such as arthropods may allow T. bruchi to survive in unfavorable and changing environments like deserts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding and conserving mobile species presents complex challenges, especially for animals in stochastic or changing environments. Nomadic waterbirds must locate temporary water in arid biomes where rainfall is highly unpredictable in space and time. To achieve this they need to travel over vast spatial scales and time arrival to exploit pulses in food resources. How they achieve this is an enduring mystery. We investigated these challenges in the colonial-nesting Banded Stilt ( Cladorhynchus leucocephalus), a nomadic shorebird of conservation concern. Hitherto, Banded Stilts were hypothesized to have only 1-2 chances to breed during their long lifetime, when flooding rain fills desert salt lakes, triggering mass-hatching of brine shrimp. Over 6 years, we satellite tagged 57 individuals, conducted 21 aerial surveys to detect nesting colonies on 14 Australian desert salt lakes, and analyzed 3 decades of Landsat and MODIS satellite imagery to quantify salt-lake flood frequency and extent. Within days of distant inland rainfall, Banded Stilts flew 1,000-2,000 km to reach flooded salt lakes. On arrival, females laid over half their body weight in eggs. We detected nesting episodes across the species' range at 7 times the frequency reported during the previous 80 years. Nesting colonies of thousands formed following minor floods, yet most were subsequently abandoned when the water rapidly evaporated prior to egg hatching. Satellite imagery revealed twice as many flood events sufficient for breeding-colony initiation as recorded colonies, suggesting that nesting at remote sites has been underdetected. Individuals took risk on uncertain breeding opportunities by responding to frequent minor flood events between infrequent extensive flooding, exemplifying the extreme adaptability and trade-offs of species exploiting unstable environments. The conservation challenges of nest predation by overabundant native gulls and anthropogenic modifications to salt lakes filling frequencies require investigation, as do the physiological and navigational mechanisms that enable such extreme strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the constitution of the Argentine State at the end of the 19th century, the military campaigns of border extension were accompanied by an abundant cartographic elaboration of the new spaces and an ethnographic practice of appropriation of the life of the native populations. This resulted in the formation of collections of photographs, skulls, and skeletons, as well as in the exhibition of groups of living natives in museums. This work approaches the symbolic and effective production processes of the nation and its other internal ones. Based on the analysis of documentary photographic records of the so-called Conquest of the Desert, and of a series of photographs produced by the Mapuche organizations themselves during the last decades in times of cultural reaffirmation, we make an attempt to account for the changes in visual representation policies, as well as in how it is interweaved in broader political-cultural disputes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heterogeneity in seeds mostly occurs due to physiological, environmental and genetic factors, and these could affect seed dormancy and germination. Therefore, the aim of our study was to assess the effect of seed colour on germination behavior. For this, both light and temperature requirements were assessed in Lotus glinoides and Lotus halophilus (Fabaceae) from the hyper-arid deserts of the United Arab Emirates. Germination was assessed in terms of both final germination level (percentage) and germination rate, as expressed by Timson's germination velocity index. Lotus glinoides produces black and yellow-colored seeds, and L. halophilus produces green and yellow seeds. Different seed lots were germinated in both light and darkness at different temperatures. Yellow seeds of the two species attained significantly lower germination, compared to black and green seeds. There was no specific light or temperature requirements for the germination of the two coloured seeds of L. glinoides; the effect of interactions between seed colour and both light and incubation temperature, were not significant on the final germination percentage. In L. halophilus, green seeds germinated significantly more in both light and darkness at lower temperatures (15/25 °C) and in light at higher temperatures (25/35 °C), compared to yellow seeds. Yellow seeds germinated faster, compared to black at 15/25 °C in L. glinoides and compared to green seeds at 15/25 °C and 25/35 °C in L. halophilus. Seed colour variation, at least in L. halophilus, could be a survival strategy that would determine the time of germination throughout the year in the unpredictable desert environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interview with Card. Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council of Culture and of the Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archeology, General Commissioner for the Holy See at the Expo of Milan 2015, is aimed at highlighting the anthropological, cultural and spiritual meanings of Expo 2015. The Holy See had the Pavilion Not By Bread Alone and Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread.By this means they were able to enter into dialogue, offering all the meaning that the Biblical- Christians Revelation can give. There is a hunger and thirst, searching for God, in human solidarity which wants to be nurtured and satisfied to the point of the Holy Eucharist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil environment have significant influence on the productivity of land. Salinity is one of the major factors which negatively affect the vegetation. To measure the influence of soil properties on vegetation, desert ecosystem in India (Little Rann of Kutch of 7020 ha) was studied. Species richness (SR) as well as density for herbs and shrubs/tree (17.018 plants m-2 and 8.617 plants 10m-2) was highest in the site 4, with high OC, OM, N, P, Ca and Fe (0.684, 1.179, 0.059 %, 42.338 kg ha-1, 170.732 and 32.016 mg kg-1) and low clay, EC and Na (33.654%, 9.441dSm-1 and 68.699 mg kg-1). High amount of clay, Na and EC with low Ca and Fe results into low density with low SR (site 2 and 5). Low SR and density are due to low concentration of OC, OM, N, P, Fe, Ca and high concentration of clay, Na and EC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rocky habitats have a particular microclimate and a highly complex structure, providing sites that mammals can use as dens or as nesting sites to raise their young. The complex topography of these habitats also favors water retention, thereby promoting growth of plants. The viscacha rat (Octomys mimax; Rodentia, Octodontidae) is a rock-dwelling hystricognath rodent that lives in rocky crevices with high vegetation cover. We hypothesized that viscacha rat selects crevices with high availability of plants included in the diet. To test this, we analyzed the diet of the viscacha rat and compared the availability of consumed plant species between used and available crevices. The diet of this species is composed mainly of leaves of shrubs and trees, includes cacti throughout the year and seeds and fruits, principally Prosopis spp., in the wet season. The food items present in caches confirmed the results obtained from microhistological analysis, with the addition of Ramorinoa girolae and Halophytum ameghinoi. This rodent takes advantage of consuming and storing available items, behaving as an opportunistic species. Selected plant species were similar in abundance in used and available crevices; consequently, crevices are likely selected for other characteristics such as thermal benefits, an important constraint in desert environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The desert area placed in the right border of Chicama River (North coast of Peru) contains evidences of human occupation since ca. 11000 b. C. to the present. In this territory –usually arid- remains of small villages, roads, stone walls and cultivation and irrigation infrastructure as well as evidences of petroglyphs and geoglyphs have been recorded. El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) produces heavy rain, the emerging of water sources and the proliferation of fauna and flora in desert area. In such conditions, the movement of people towards this area takes place to occupy it temporarily, so that it can be possible the use of its resources during several years and the development of opportunist farming, hunting and herding; moreover, the area are frequented by local medicine men to celebrate their rituals. On the basis of archaeological and ethnographical data, we describe the characteristics of the occupation and resources use in desert area transformed by ENSO in the past as well as some activities that continue been made in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expanding markets, technologies with their origins in the second industrial revolution, pressing government needs, and what might be called state policy made possible the construction of large irrigation systems during the post-revolutionary period in Mexico. This led to the expansion of the agricultural frontier by millions of hectares during the 20th century. This study examines the plans that led to the construction of these irrigation systems in the north of the country, a multiregional space that comprises about 60 percent of Mexican territory, and whose main characteristic is its aridity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sand spots on the southwestern of Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil, form notable features in the landscape, resembling by far with deserts. Despite this similarity, there are the questions: Could it be argued that this areas in a geographic location related to the desert areas of the globe? Or ask: Where is the climate dry and susceptible to desertification? Or: Where climatic trends or changes that would induce the establishment of an arid/semi-arid climate occur? Or even: Where would there be seasonality in precipitation in order to characterize a well-defined dry season? Questions raised, in this essay aims to answer these questions based on the premise to demystify the occurrence of desert or desertification processes in the area, but also the presentation of sandization processes as a basis for understanding theses sand spots called sand deposits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present data on presence and abundance, and nesting activity of the exotic monk parakeet (Myiopsitta monachus) in the southern portion of the Baja California peninsula. The monk parakeet was recorded for the first time in November 2012 at the town of Chametla, 7 km North of La Paz city and since then the monk parakeet has increased its numbers. We recorded nesting activity between May-August 2013 and May-August 2014. Nests were built on Mexican fan (Washingtonia robusta, 75%) and coconut (Cocos nucífera, 25%) palms. Monk parakeets were observed feeding on fruits of date palm (Phoenix dactylifera), mesquite (Prosopis sp.), tamarin (Tamarindus indica), guamuchil (Pithecellobium dulce) and pearlberry (Vallesia glabra), and remains of human waste foods. Finally, we discuss the potential implications of the establishment of this exotic species in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the representation of Mexico's northern deserts in the first film directed by Carlos Bolado, Bajo California. El límite del tiempo (1998). Bajo California moves away from a film tradition that in Mexico and the US tends to portray border deserts as mere backgrounds for the tensions and problems in the region, or as blank spaces on which to project different modern and postmodern utopias or dystopias. Taking into consideration the ways in which cultural geographers such as Edward W. Soja and Doreen Massey have redefined the concepts of space and place, this article will look at the desert as a third space, that is, as a physical and imagined reality where different histories, visions and experiences meet. This analysis will help determine the ways in which contemporary Mexican artists converse with previous representations of the landscape as an allegory of the nation. At the same time, it will help us explore the emotional and symbolic value that landscape brings to the discussion in cultural studies about space, identity and globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book Norte Grande is eloquent link between Nature-Society-Work. Although society is an oppressive and exclusionary phantasmagoria. The author is concerned with fluency describe the relationship between nature and labor, which generate a conflict of identity. On the one hand and the pampas Pampa, on the other side is and worker and the factory. At first glance the work looks like a telluric determinism, but is actually a tribute to roto pampino. Highlights the ability of man to fight to the death against the adversities of nature and society. It is a conflict in which the pampas is only: without God and State. But the worker provides his two greatest resources: your body and spirit, his shoulder and his heart and cherry and faith. This work is a true mapping of life and death of the pampas in the desert of the Big North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 19th century the formation of a social basis necessary to strengthen the republican nation constituted a process that had followed a top-down approach promoted by the literate elites who found in real people an obstacle for their own convictions; the "other" that is not accepted or is kept at the margin of modernizing political ideas. These elites will understand the situation in terms of binary oppositions such as "barbarism - civilization", "possible republic - true republic," and would enforce the necessary means to overcome them. It was time to found the nation and the elements associated with race, traditions, language and religion were not the proper scaffolding for that foundation. Maybe those are the reasons why the picture of the desert to be populated becomes a metaphor and an explanation for all the evils that prevent the achievement of the desired order. Although the country was characterized by the presence of large extensions of land, those were not desert areas, as they had already been populated, and that native population and their colonial habits blended and became part of that landscape. Consequently, the citizen, according to the former traditions, had to be constructed from scratch. This essay aims at analyzing the image of the desert as a political conception and the invisibilization of the native "other" in the process of building the national state. It is part of the Project "Territorios dinámicos, tramas complejas. Deconstruyendo las relaciones de poder, los actores y las tensiones en diferentes escalas" within the Research Program "Contextos territoriales contemporáneos: abordajes desde la geografía" Resolution N° 093 - 14 - CD - FCH from UNLPam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tillandsial lomas (vegetal communities dominated by plants of the genera Tillandsia) are ecosystems distributed in the coast of Peru and Chile. In order to study the density and spatial distribution of Tillandsia latifolia in Cerro Piedra Campana (Lima, Perú) and its relation to the topography and substrate, 72 plots of 100m2 were placed in the area. The number of ramets (and its phenological stage) and genets were counted in each plot. The mean density of genets, ramets and the mean coverage was 60.58 genets/plot, 235.03 ramets/plot and 9.60% respectively; these values were the highest in plots facing the sea, in streams, and in sandy areas compared to those with northwest and northeast orientation, that were on hillsides and in rocky areas (p <0.05 in all cases). The proportion ramets/genet was 3.71 with the highest mean values obtained in plots facing southwest and northeast. The proportion of ramets in stage of inflorescence was the highest in the plots facing the sea, the highest proportion of flowering individuals were found in the west side of the study area (specially in sandy areas); fruiting individuals were more abundant in the east side (p<0.05 in all cases) revealing demographic asynchrony in the population. The role of topography and substrate on the spatial distribution of this species in the area are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the rich symbolism offered by the central Australian desert, and what happens when it becomes a site of feminist protest, as happened in 1983 when Australian women mounted a women-only peace camp at the Pine Gap military facility. The desert holds iconic status as both the ‘centre’ of Australia and ‘the middle of nowhere’, evoked as the ‘heart’ of the country and yet represented as dangerous and deadly. Its ambivalent meaning for white Australia unsettles Pine Gap as a site of protest, and also differentiates it from more traditional protest sites like urban streets, as well as from the most famous women's peace camp at Greenham Common in England. This account is made more complex by my own formative relation to central Australia, where I lived as a child and left in 1983 around the same time as the protest. The impact and limits of situated knowledge and feminist writing practice thus form part of this research as it also intimately addresses the formation of my feminist self through the remembering and remaking of meanings for this landscape of my childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The textual analysis of the verbal description about the landscape given by Mexicali Valley inhabitants showed aspects of valuation, as well as similarities and differences according to age group. Also, some emotional and experiential elements that have an impact on the preferences and identification that those individuals expressed in relation to some places in the region were revealed, in which the term topophilia became apparent. Although the main purpose of the research in this article was focused on the inhabitants' perception about Mexicali Valley landscape, the results allowed approaching topophilia through the reasons given by the interviewed persons for preferring or identifying with a particular place in the region studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lately, Roberto Bolano has been mentioned as a poet. Some questions arise from this fact: the relevance of his poetry, its importance in the context of his work and the relationship between his poetry and his prose. The aim of this paper is to comment on that relationship and to understand the passage or dissolution between his poetry and prose through the particular case of the metaphor of the desert in 2666. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To evaluate the effects of desert scrub habitat fragmentation on resident and migrant populations of Red-tailed Hawk and American Kestrel, we conducted monthly raptor road surveys during two years, 2008 and 2009, in natural desert scrub areas and in fragmented areas of Baja California Sur, México. We recorded 1,806 records of the two raptor species. The most common was the American Kestrel with 1,164 (64.4%) records (51% found in fragmented area, and 49% in natural area). The Redtailed Hawk accounted for 642 records (35.6%) (70% in fragmented areas, and 30% in natural areas). The relative abundance and density of Red-tailed Hawk in the spring and summer were similar between areas, but in the fall and winter the abundances and densities were much higher in fragmented areas. The abundance of American Kestrel was similar between areas in all seasons. Density was similar between areas in spring, summer and winter but it was higher in fragmented areas in the fall. The desert scrub of Baja California Sur and fragmented areas inside a cultivated agricultural matrix is an important habitat for migrant populations of both raptor species as indicated by the results of the fall and winter seasons. We discuss on the raptor species tolerance to habitat changes (threshold concept) as a function of their body size and habitat specialization (for nesting and foraging activities) and on the effects of fragmentation of desert scrub habitats on the abundance and density of the Red-tailed Hawk and American Kestrel in southern Baja California peninsula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remnants of old debris flows occur on mountains that have been surrounded by growing suburbs of metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, including on steep slopes above large single-family dwellings. Varnish microlamination and lead-profile dating techniques measured ages of 34 debris-flow levees in nine randomly selected catchments above home sites. Four catchments experienced debris flows in the last century, and four others had events in the last 350 years. Debris flows likely pose a modern hazard in Phoenix and perhaps other growing cities in the desert Southwest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vegetation of the sandy hills ("lomas") constitutes the main originality of the Peruvian and Chilean desert with a high number of endemics that shapes the vicarious associations. In this work, a phytosociological view of sandy environments of the Peruvian coastal desert is presented. According to the Braun-Blanquet method, we have made up 32 phytosociological inventories and added 138 ones from others authors. In each inventory, we have analyzed its floristic composition and ecological parameters, as altitude, soil and geomorphology. All releves were synthesized in a table to deduce the different associations, higher phytosociological units, and the distribution of its flora along the Peruvian coast and the Andean Cordillera. Using the Shannon-Wiener diversity index, the diversity of this flora is discussed making a comparison with historical data about the use of the territory with livestock during pre-Inca and Inca cultures, and Spanish invasion. As a result, two associations from Southern Peru -Nolanetum scaposo-spathulatae and Palauetum camanensis-weberbaueri-, two alliances -Nolanion humifusae from central Peru, and Nolanion spathulatae from the Southern Peru- and a new order -Tetragonio crystallinae- Plantaginetalia limensis- are described. In Nolanetum scaposo-spathulatae, Dictyophragnus englerianus, Leptoglossis lomana, Nolana scaposa, N. spathulata, Palaua velutina and Tetragonia vestita are the main characteristics, while in Palauetum camanensis-weberbaueri association N. scaposa and P. velutina are replaced by Palaua camanensis and P. weberbaueri. Nolanion humifusae alliance integrates species as Geranium limae, Hymenocallis amancaes, Nolana humifusa, N. latipes, Palaua rhombifolia or Villanova oppositifolia. Likewise, Cistanthe weberbaueri, Cryptantha parviflora, Hoffmannseggia miranda, Lupinus mollendoensis, Nolana confinis, N. pallidula, N. scaposa, N. spathulata, Palaua camanensis, P. velutina, P. weberbaueri, Tetragonia vestita and Weberbauerella brongniartioides are the characteristic species of Nolanion spathulatae alliance. The Tetragonio crystallinae-Plantaginetalia limensis order presents characteristic plants don't linked with eutrophic soils, as Calandrinia alba, Cryptantha limensis, Dyschoriste repens, Monnina macrostachya, Oxalis lomana, Palaua malvifolia, Pectocarya lateriflora, Plantago limensis or Tetragonia crystallina, with a distribution that claps the geographical area of the new alliances. On the other hand, the vegetation of the desert ravines is discussed in the context of the coastal river plant communities and its disturbance by the dunes. After the application of the Shannon-Wiener diversity index on the synthetic table columns, we can deduce that an increase in Andean and European ruderal species is linked to an intensive livestock activity. The transhumance between the Andes and the coast from pre-inca times until now, produces the plant dispersion of high Andean plants toward the coast; the Spanish colonization was the origin of the presence of European plants in the "lomas" vegetation of Peru. Rev. Biol. Trop. 59 (2): 809-828. Epub 2011 June 01. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The desert territory and the culture of the inhabitants of the border zone that occupies Mexicali and its agricultural valley have been transformed and in this way they have generated several cultural characteristics that have contributed to the construction of a regional identity with anchorages in the arid geography. Indeed, the central objective of this article is to think the relation established between desert and culture, from a theoretical-conceptual perspective and to contribute, in this way, to the construction of a general frame that can be useful for other empiricist researches about the cultural identity in Mexicali and its agricultural valley. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of the components of saline stress (osmotic and ionic factors) were evaluated during the germination of four quinua (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) selections in Chile, two collected in the arid northern highland region with saline soils (Amarilla and Roja) and the other two from the rainy southern region with non-saline soils (Hueque and Pucura). The seeds were treated with different saline concentrations (0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.8 and 1.2 M NaCl). Germination kinetics shows that the control treatments of the four selections reach 100% germination. With application of 0.4 M NaCl (LD50max) germination was reduced by 53% in the Amarilla selection and 89.9% in Hueque. The germination rate was lower for the seeds from non-saline areas, which reached germination after 22 h, compared to 10 h for Amarilla. By separating the salinity stress factors (osmotic and ionic), it is evident that they have different degrees of influence on quinua germination, according to each selection. Thus, the germination of Amarilla selection from the arid area was the least influenced by the ionic factor (27%), Pucura and Roja were more affected by the ionic factor (40% and 46% respectively), and Hueque, from the rainy area, was more affected by the osmotic factor, in which caused a 50% loss in germination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The whole poetic work of Raúl Zurita (National Prize of Literature, 2000) tells about God search. In this way it is crossed by the biblical intertextuality. His poetical and vital project takes from Dante the scheme: hell-purgatory- paradise, in order to construct the way from a present of pain and self-destruction to the glimpse of happiness. In the section "Pastoral of Chile" of the book "Anteparaíso" (1982) Zurita talks to some biblical prophets, especially to Oseas, who preaches in Israel during the Eighth Century b. C. And the poet prophesies in Chile when it was under military dictatorship. The present study intends to tell us about the intensity and peculiarities of this dialogue between poetry and theology, whose meeting aims to get to the bottom of the question about the last sense of human existence, that nests in each authentic work of art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the NW sector of Argentina between the latitudes of Mendoza (32° 53'S) and Jachal (San Juan) (30° 15' S) extends a NS oriented tectonic valley located between the Pre-Cordillera and the Front Cord illera of the Andes. This valley is 2,000-5,000 m deep with respect to the Pre-Cordillera and Cordillera summits that borders it on the East and West; it is Ca. 300 km long and 40 km wide on the average. This is actually a perfect case of rain shadow desert comparable to the well known Californian Death Valley, with an hyperarid climate. At the lowest point (Calingasta -San Juan-, 1,375 m) the long-term mean annual rainfall is only 54 mm and up to 100-120 mm on the highest points (Tambillos -Mendoza-, 2,164 m). From the geomorphic, climatic, floristic and vegetational viewpoints this posttectonic graben is a true desert void of perennial vegetation on the pediments, while perennial species are contracted along the hydraulic network and around the topographic depressions. Vegetation on the pediments is set up in a steppe-like diffuse pattern in the highest parts above 1,800 m of elevation, and on a contracted pattern in the lower (1,300-1,800 m asl). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This area in Neuquén, which has become one of the main areas of vineyard production in the region, is located approximately 55 km from the capital of the province. Here, the agro-ecological conditions are important because of their variation in temperature, their intense luminosity, low relative humidity and low rainfall, which give the area an excellent potential for grape growing. The first crops were planted in 1999 on sandy and stony soils with drip irrigation; the fermentation was made in stainless steel tanks and in casks made of American and French oak. The wineries are in the stage of full production, also in terms of marketing and consumption, not only in the local market but also in the export market under the names of "Bodegas del Fin del Mundo", "María y Adelina", "Bodegas NQN", "Viñedos de la Patagonia" and "Bodegas del Añelo". The image of the rural area as a merely productive sector is nowadays changing since it performs several functions in the restructuring of the socio-economic system. Not only is the rural area a food and goods supplier in the complex value-changing market of agribusiness, but it is also an area that offers possibilities of insertion in the job market for the employment-unemployment cycle. The unemployed workers of different origins, whether in the city or the countryside, with a production oriented towards self-consumption, were taught how to carry out vineyard activities in the area, being daily transport and food in charge of the companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses a series of discursive transformations operated almost simultaneously in Argentina and the United States. Late in the nineteenth century, both countries completed their territorial integration occupying indigenous lands, claiming them to be ‘empty’. In the writings of Argentinean propagandists, the theoretical influence of European authors and that of North American contemporaneous writers directly involved in Indian policy are clearly noticeable. Through their discourse, indigenous people—usually called ‘indians’ until then— turned into sub-human ‘savages’, while ‘Christianity’ as a reference of self-identity was replaced by the notion of ‘civilization’ incarnated in the white race, and indigenous ‘territories’ were represented as ‘deserts’ inside the national territory, even if not under effective State control. By those means, former sovereign and independent indigenous nations were forcibly incorporated to the Nation State as ‘rebellious bands’. Legitimated by the racist theories developed by the positivist science, this discourse gained hegemonic recognition in the literary and journalistic fields, resulting in juridical measures that decisively contributed to the domestication of the indigenous question, to the deprivation of indigenous individual and collective rights and to a very limited citizenship. Taking into account the recent United Nations researches on indigenous issues we present critiques of those intellectual constructions in order to contribute to the recognition and restitution of indigenous people's rights in modern and democratic Nation States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observations were made in an arid ecosystem in the Chillón River Valley, in Lima -- Perú, on July 2003. The relation of the cacti community with the Camponotus sp. ant was determined in four 15 x 15 meters quadrants. The richness of the cacti species was S = 8 and it was found out that the ant forages only in the outside of the Neoraimondia arequipensis ssp. roseiflora bottom flowers. The results suggest that the ant acts as a bioindicator of the presence of external flower nectarines as the successful gaster pressure test conducted in the collected liquid content indicated. A highly significant correlation using the Pearson coefficient, between the number of bottom flowers in N. arequipensis and the foraging ants was obtained. These results on preliminary observations of the Lima's Cactaceae Sub Proyect are very important in this ecosystem with limited biotic elements and extreme abiotic variables. It is an interesting tool for gaining knowledge and for the comprehension of complex ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]