Figure captions
Figure 1. Sampling areas had three shrub species ofAmygdalus scoparia (A), Daphne mezereum (B) andEbenus stellata (C) that formed woody patches in the surrounding herbaceous vegetation, used as control (D) for comparing soil and vegetation characteristics, Marvast semiarid rangelands, Yazd province, Iran.
Figure 2. Mean (± SE) soil properties under three shrubs:Amygdalus scoparia , Daphne mezereum and Ebenus stellata and herbaceous vegetation as control, Marvast semiarid rangelands, Yazd province, Iran. Lower case letters indicate statistically significant differences (P <0.05) among patch types.
Figure 3. Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) of soil properties (R2=0.98 for Non-metric fit, R2=0.95 for Linear fit and Stress=0.01) under the three shrubs and herbaceous vegetation as control (A.m: Amygdalus scoparia , D.m: Daphne mezerum E.s=Ebenus stellata , cl: control).
Figure 4. Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) of plant composition according to the plant cover composition (R2=0.94 for Non-metric fit, R2=0.66 for Linear fit and Stress=0.03) under the three shrubs and herbaceous vegetation as control (A.m: Amygdalus scoparia , D.m: Daphne mezerum E.s= Ebenus stellata , cl: control).