▪ Abstract Variations in Earth's orbit with periods of 10–100 thousand years
(kyr)(Milankovitch oscillations) have led to recurrent and rapid climatic shifts throughout …

Namaqualand is a winter-rainfall desert of some 50 000 km 2, located in north-western
South Africa. For a desert ecosystem, the region is characterized by a unique selective …

We suggest Milankovitch climate oscillations as a common cause for geographical patterns
in species diversity, species' range sizes, polyploidy, and the degree of specialization and …

This book offers a concise but comprehensive introduction to desert ecology and adopts a
strong evolutionary focus. As with other titles in the Biology of Habitats Series, the emphasis …

We assess the potential impact of climate change on plant diversity in the Cape Floristic
Region (CFR) and its interaction with land transformation that has already occurred in the …

The plant diversity of the Cape Floristic Region is regarded as being exceptional in an
ecological and evolutionary context. The region supports about double the number of …

Like island-endemic taxa, whose origins are expected to postdate the appearance of the
islands on which they occur, biome-endemic taxa should be younger than the biomes to …

Conservation planning has hitherto concentrated largely on the representation of
biodiversity patterns within a system of conservation areas. Only recently has there been an …

The mechanisms involved in the modulation of photosynthesis by drought in non-CAM
desert plants have received little attention and were investigated in this study through …

Many hypotheses have been proposed to account for geographic variations in species
diversity. In general these relate to some aspect of climate, particularly climatic variables …