Switches, pulses and grazing in arid vegetation

This paper examines the possible effect of plants of drylands on their own environment and on neighbouring individuals, in particular the potential for positive feedback between individuals and populations. There are many examples both in shrubby desert vegetation and in desert grassland, but it is in the grassland that feedback is especially associated with small rainfall pulses. I suggest that boundaries between grassland and shrubland are likely to be abrupt in space and time because desert grassland vegetation has a more positive reaction to rainfall change and to its own effects on its environment. Grazing has an important part to play in this relationship. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.