Linking Ecological Understanding and Application: Patchiness in a Dryland System

A project to restore degraded grazing land in the Negev Desert focuses on biodiversity and productivity of plants. To enhance these two variables, the surface characteristics are manipulated to control water flow and associated nutrient movement in the system. Pits collect resources and permit the survival of trees, producing a savanna physiognomy in the formerly purely shrub desert. Hydrologists, ecologists, and managers interact via a model of the system that is unified around spatial heterogeneity and patchiness. The model suggests manipulations that expand the scientific understanding of the system and point to management options for enhancing and maintaining diversity and productivity. The framework links a scientific paradigm with theories, models, research hypotheses, and approaches to management. The theory is needed to make the general assumptions of the paradigm apparent, the models are needed to operationalize the theory, the hypotheses to generate research, and the management approaches to suggest manipulations appropriate for specific cases of conservation. This framework can be generalized for use in other cases.