Functional biogeography is the discipline that studies the geographic distribution of organismal traits and their relationships with environmental conditions and ecosystem functioning. Trait multifunctionality can be a major challenge in such analyses, so deciphering trait geographic distributions from functions is not always straightforward. We studied spinescence in the flora of Israel and the Palestinian Authority as a case of a multifunctional trait, associated mainly with antiherbivory defence, aridity alleviation, and propagule and seed dispersal. We studied how the proportion of spiny species in the flora of Israel and the Palestinian Authority and the distribution of different spine locations within the plants vary along a very strong bioclimatic (especially rainfall) gradient in Israel and the Palestinian Authority. We found that plant spinescence, as expressed in species proportion, is more frequently positively associated with increasing aridity and summer heat, and more generally with resource limitations. However, spinescence of reproductive plant parts, which in many species aids seed dispersal, presents opposite trends. These patterns reflect the differing importance of each of the three major roles attributed to plant spinescence, and point to the relative importance of each in driving overall spinescence geographic distribution. Thus, the traits’ geographic distribution patterns can elucidate these traits’ multifunctionality and improve our understanding of the evolution and spatial variation among these functions.

In sub/tropical waters, benthic foraminifera are among the most abundant epiphytic organisms inhabiting seagrass meadows. This study explored the nature of the association between foraminifera and the tropical seagrass species H. stipulacea, aiming to determine whether these interactions are facilitative or random. For this, we performed a "choice" experiment, where foraminifera could colonize H. stipulacea plants or plastic "seagrasses" plants. At the end of the experiment, a microbiome analysis was performed to identify possible variances in the microbial community and diversity of the substrates. Results show that foraminifera prefer to colonize H. stipulacea, which had a higher abundance and diversity of foraminifera than plastic seagrass plants, which increased over time and with shoot age. Moreover, H. stipulacea leaves have higher epiphytic microbial community abundance and diversity. These results demonstrate that seagrass meadows are important hosts of the foraminifera community and suggest the potential facilitative effect of H. stipulacea on epiphytic foraminifera, which might be attributed to a greater diversity of the microbial community inhabiting H. stipulacea.

Seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination facilities produce freshwater and, at the same time, discharge hypersaline brine that often includes various chemical additives such as antiscalants and coagulants. This dense brine can sink to the sea bottom and creep over the seabed, reaching up to 5 km from the discharge point. Previous reviews have discussed the effects of SWRO desalination brine on various marine ecosystems, yet little attention has been paid to the impacts on benthic habitats. This review comprehensibly discusses the effects of SWRO brine discharge on marine benthic fauna and flora. We review previous studies that indicated a suite of impacts by SWRO brine on benthic organisms, including bacteria, seagrasses, polychaetes, and corals. The effects within the discharge mixing zones range from impaired activities and morphological deformations to changes in the community composition. Recent modeling work demonstrated that brine could spread over the seabed, beyond the mixing zone, for up to several tens of kilometers and impair nutrient fluxes from the sediment to the water column. We also provide a possible perspective on brine’s impact on the biogeochemical process within the mixing zone subsurface. Desalination brine can infiltrate into the sandy bottom around the discharge area due to gravity currents. Accumulation of brine and associated chemical additives, such as polyphosphonate-based antiscalants and ferric-based coagulants in the porewater, may change the redox zones and, hence, impact biogeochemical processes in sediments. With the demand for drinking water escalating worldwide, the volumes of brine discharge are predicted to triple during the current century. Future efforts should focus on the development and operation of viable technologies to minimize the volumes of brine discharged into marine environments, along with a change to environmentally friendly additives. However, the application of these technologies should be partly subsidized by governmental stakeholders to safeguard coastal ecosystems around desalination facilities.

Looking at terrestrial hyper-arid rock slopes, one would expect such landforms in areas characterized by climatic and tectonic stability coupled with sparse or no vegetation to show minor geomorphic changes. The Uvda Valley, located in the southern part of the Negev Desert, Israel, is an excellent area to examine different controls on rock-slope geomorphic evolution. The presence of large boulders (> 1 m long) on a 16 ka alluvial terraces beneath the rock slopes challenges the concept of minor changes and indicates an ongoing dynamic erosion process. Hyper-arid rock-slope retreat models are mainly correlated to differential erosion processes (e.g., formation of mesas and cuestas), while models related to retreat of a single-lithology rock slope are based on limited field data. Quantifying weathering and transport processes in the Uvda Valley along sedimentary rock slopes composed of a single lithology reveals a systematic spatial pattern of erosional features. Such weathering features coupled with rock debris are suggested to play a major role in shaping rock-slope dynamics since the late Pleistocene.

Since 1980 dermatologists have been interested in the exceptional healing reported by patients who underwent treatments at the Dead Sea. Tens of thousands of patients have visited this area and more than 10,000 cases have been the subject of clinical and laboratory studies since this natural therapeutic option was discovered for psoriasis management. Through evaluation of the published articles on climatotherapy, we tried to reach a global assessment of the usefulness of this approach and to discover whether this treatment still can be recommended in the era of biologic treatments. I conducted a review of the available literature on clinical trials through PubMed, Medline, and Google Scholar using the terms psoriasis and Dead Sea. I found 26 studies published between 1982 and 2021. Assessment of patients showed major improvement through several selected parameters. Length of the stay and medical supervision positively influenced the major outcomes observed. Duration of improvement and possible long-term side effects of this natural treatment still need to be more precisely determined. Exposure to the unique climatic factors of the region, essentially the sun and the sea, induces fast and significant results with high clearance rates of psoriasis plaques. Dead Sea climatotherapy still has its place for the control of psoriasis symptoms.

The Mediterranean Sea has been experiencing rapid increases in temperature and salinity triggering its tropicalization. Additionally, its connection with the Red Sea has been favouring the establishment of non-native species. In this study, we investigated the effects of predicted climate change and the introduction of invasive seagrass species (Halophila stipulacea) on the native Mediterranean seagrass community (Posidonia oceanica and Cymodocea nodosa) by applying a novel ecological and spatial model with different configurations and parameter settings based on a Cellular Automata (CA). The proposed models use a discrete (stepwise) representation of space and time by executing deterministic and probabilistic rules that develop complex dynamic processes. Model applications were run under two climate scenarios (RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5) projected from 2020 to 2100 in four different regions within the Mediterranean. Results indicate that the slow-growing P. oceanica will be highly vulnerable to climate change, suffering vast declines in its abundance. However, the results also show that western and colder areas of the Mediterranean Sea might represent refuge areas for this species. Cymodocea nodosa has been reported to exhibit resilience to predicted climate scenarios; however, it has shown habitat regression in the warmest predicted regions in the easternmost part of the basin. Our models indicate that H. stipulacea will thrive under projected climate scenarios, facilitating its spread across the basin. Also, H. stipulacea grew at the expense of C. nodosa, limiting the distribution of the latter, and eventually displacing this native species. Additionally, simulations demonstrated that areas from which P. oceanica meadows disappear would be partially covered by C. nodosa and H. stipulacea. These outcomes project that the Mediterranean seagrass community will experience a transition from long-lived, large and slow-growing species to small and fast-growing species as climate change progresses.

Jojoba ( Simmondsia chinensis L.) wax was previously reported to increase cutaneous wound healing, ameliorate acne and psoriasis manifestations, and reduce oxidative stress and inflammation. However, its potential cosmetic properties have not been fully investigated. Thus, the current study aimed to evaluate the anti-inflammatory activities of jojoba wax and its impact on the synthesis of extracellular components following topical application. The fatty acid and fatty alcohol profiles of two industrial and two lab-scale cold-press jojoba waxes were analyzed along with total tocopherol and phytosterol content. The dermo-cosmetic effect of all jojoba wax preparations was evaluated ex-vivo , using the human skin organ culture model, which emulates key features of intact tissue. The ability of jojoba wax to reduce secreted levels of key pro-inflammatory cytokines and the safety of the applications in the ex-vivo model were evaluated. In addition, the impact on the synthesis of pro-collagen and hyaluronic acid levels upon treatment was investigated. The results demonstrate that topically applied jojoba wax can reduce LPS-induced secretion of IL-6, IL-8, and TNFα by approx. 30% compared to untreated skin. This effect was enhanced when treatment was combined with low non-toxic levels of Triton X-100, and its efficacy was similar to the anti-inflammatory activity of dexamethasone used as a positive control. In addition, mRNA and protein levels of collagen III and synthesis of hyaluronic acid were markedly increased upon topical application of jojoba. Moreover, the enhanced content of extracellular matrix (ECM) components correlated with the enhanced expression of TGFβ1. Collectively, our results further demonstrate that jojoba can reduce local skin inflammation, and this effect may be increased by emulsifier which increases its bioavailability. In addition, the finding that topical application of jojoba wax enhances the synthesis of pro-collagen and hyaluronic acid and may be beneficial in the treatment of age-related manifestations.

The Gulf of Elat-Aqaba (GEA), located in the southern part of the Dead Sea Transform (DST), is one of the most active segments of the Dead Sea fault system. Yet, some fundamental details concerning its evolution in space and time are still not fully understood. To better constrain the tectonic history of this region, we study a succession of alluvial, lacustrine, and fluvial deposits in the north-western edge of the GEA, which belong to the Quaternary Eilot and Garof Fms. The Eilot Fm. represents low-energy shallow freshwater bodies and sabkhas, which predate the development of the deep part of the basin. Later, in response to the subsidence of the basin, the Garof Fm. was deposited in alluvial fans that built up following the increase in the depositional energy. Cosmogenic burial ages combined with magnetostratigraphy show that these Fms. were deposited as early as 3.03 Ma and as late as 1.65 Ma, depending on the applied age model. Considering the present depth of the northern GEA, this age indicates a maximum subsidence rate of the head of the GEA of ∼1.98mm/yr. We suggest that faults along the onshore margin of the deep basin were active during the deposition of the Garof Fm. and subsequently became inactive, while the faulting activity migrated toward the center of the basin. Closed Holocene basins north of the present seashore, such as the Elat and Evrona playas, which may represent a modern analogue to the Plio-Pleistocene morphology, raise the possibility that the GEA head is still propagating northward.

We calibrated an acoustic pipe microphone system to monitor bedload flux in a sandy, gravel-bed ephemeral channel. Ours is a first attempt to test the limit of an acoustic surrogate bedload system in a channel with a high content of sand. Calibrations varied in quality; significant data subsetting was required to achieve R² values >0.75. Several data quality issues had to be addressed: (1) apparent pulses, which occur when a sensor records an impulse from sediment impacting the surrounding substrate rather than directly impacting the sensor, were frequent, especially at higher signal amplifications. (2) The impact sensors were frequently covered by gravel sheets. This prompted the development of a cover detection protocol that rejected part of the impact sensor record when at least one sensor was partially or fully covered. (3) Because of the lack of sensor sensitivity to impacts of sand-sized particles, which was anticipated, and the considerable sand component of bedload in this channel, a grain size-limited bedload flux was estimated. This was accomplished by sampling the bedload captured by slot samplers and evaluating the variation of grain size with increasing flow strength. This considerably improved the results when compared to attempts at estimating the flux of the entire distribution of grain sizes. This calibration is a successful first attempt, though the impact sensors required several site-specific calibration steps. A universal set of equations using impact sensors to estimate bedload transport of fine-gravel with a large content of sand remains elusive. Notwithstanding, our study demonstrates the utility of impact sensor data, producing relatively low root mean square errors that are independent of measurements of flow strength (i.e. discharge). These tools will be particularly useful in settings that would benefit from new methodologies for estimating bedload transport in sand-rich gravel-bed rivers, such as the American desert Southwest.

Introduced predators are thought to be responsible for the decline and extinction of their native prey. The prey naivety hypothesis provides a mechanism for these declines, suggesting that native prey are vulnerable to introduced predators as their coevolutionary history is insufficiently long for antipredator behaviours to fully develop. The prey naivety hypothesis thus predicts that prey will be less responsive to introduced predators than to native predators. Australia's endemic small mammals are thought to be vulnerable to predation by red foxes because they are less responsive to – or naive of – a predator with whom they have only co-occurred since the 19th century. To test whether nativeness determines antipredator behaviours we compared small mammal behavioural responses to fox scent outside (Australia) and inside the foxes' native range (North America and Israel). We conducted giving-up density experiments in the deserts of these three regions and evaluated small mammal antipredator responses to fox scent. To place these results in a broader context, we then integrated our results into a global meta-analysis of studies assessing prey responsiveness to fox scent. All small mammals similarly increased their vigilance in response to fox scent, regardless of their coevolutionary history with foxes. Australian small mammals responded with greater wariness to fox scent, by decreasing time at food patches in response to fox scent more than Israeli and American small mammals did. However, we found no evidence that this behaviour influenced foraging as nut consumption was unaffected. Our meta-analysis revealed that globally, small mammals respond with similar wariness to fox scent regardless of whether foxes are their native predator. We found no evidence that Australian small mammals respond in a maladaptive manner, compared to the foxes' native prey. Our results suggest that animals can develop antipredator behaviours to introduced predators to the same magnitude as native prey.