Resource pulses in arid environments - patterns of rain, patterns of life

Global warming means that precipitation patterns will change nearly everywhere in the world, but nowhere more than in arid and semiarid ecosystems. Here, precipitation is the dominant driver of biological processes across a broad range of spatial and temporal scales. However, characterizations of water-limited ecosystems on the basis of long-term, mean precipitation are often inadequate, especially in changing environments. Research is therefore now focusing on precipitation patterns, and how changes in these patterns could modify the effect of mean precipitation on the dynamics of soil processes and plant and animal populations.