Plant recolonization after severe degradation: a case study in the Negev highlands of Israel

Desert plant communities that have been destroyed have recuperated within approximately 30 years. The swift recovery of plant cover is enabled, in part, by the inherent fast rate of re-establishment and turn-over of perennial plants of such communities, selected for those traits during thousands of years of intensive human interference. Such acquired traits are characteristic of several desert shrub communities, e.g.Serphidium sieberiandZygophyllum dumosumassociations. These shrub associations are stable, though the turn-over rate of their constituent species is very rapid, i.e. 3–5 years for the various species ofHelianthemumandReaumuria