Abstract
The habitat refers to a broad variety of resources, including biotic and abiotic elements supporting a particular species’ ability to survive and adapt within an environmental context associated with attributes of a certain location. The terrestrial habitat natures of arid desert ecosystems are example of how native biota and microflora adapt to such harsh conditions. The arid desert ecosystems are the most widespread terrestrial biome on earth and are distinguished by the severe climatic conditions including prolonged drought, extreme temperatures, low and infrequent rainfall, strong winds and limited biota of flora and fauna structures. The State of Kuwait is characterized by arid desert environment, which mostly consists of flat desert plain with mild undulations. Kuwait has a typical hyper-arid desert climate with two discrete seasons. The Kuwait desert ecosystem shelters a reasonable number of a unique biota that are highly adaptable to extreme environments of various habitat structures. In this publication, focus is given to the terrestrial habitats in the desert ecosystems of Kuwait and their association with different plant species. The review depicted three different ecosystems (desert plain, sand dunes and salt marshes), and among major terrestrial habitats, smooth, rugged and active sand sheets, wadis and depressions, escarpments, barchan dunes, coastal sand dunes and nebkhas, as well as coastal and inland sabkhas are the main components.
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Acknowledgements
The Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) provided the resources and help needed to acquire the information for this review chapter, which the author gratefully acknowledges. The Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS) is acknowledged for supporting the scientific research. The authors would like to express their gratitude to Mrs. Jasmine P. Sali for formatting, editing, and preparing the figures as well as Eng. Harby Tawfeeq for his technical input. Both are colleagues at the Desert Agriculture and Ecosystems Program of Environment and Life Sciences Research Center, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research Kuwait.
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Madouh, T.A., Quoreshi, A.M. (2023). Terrestrial Habitats and Ecosystems of Kuwait. In: Suleiman, M.K., Shahid, S.A. (eds) Terrestrial Environment and Ecosystems of Kuwait . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46262-7_10
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