Overview Fire, a natural ecological disturbance, has been suppressed in U.S. forests for much of the past century. This has prevented damage to property and protected timber resources, but has caused many forests to develop in an unnatural manner, resulting Read more
On January 5th, Bruce Hungate presented at Science on Tap at the Green Room, Flagstaff. Featuring an update on the Paris agreement (COP21), new science, legal intrigue, and what Elvis can teach us about climate models.
Aquatic ecosystems in the southwestern US are among the most threatened in the country: rates of species loss are high, with few remaining refuges for natives, and water extraction for human use and diversion for power generation impose major demands Read more
Overview The identities of organisms profoundly influence ecosystems, and microbial diversity is vast. The obvious disconnect between this diversity and its treatment in C cycling models is perhaps the best manifestation of the common complaint that so much physiology, taxonomy, Read more
Overview Using a technique called data-assimilation, we can inform existing ecosystem models with measurements from field experiments. In combination with meta-analysis, this approach becomes a powerful statistical tool to improve our predictions of ecosystem responses to global change. We recently used Read more
Overview Over the past several decades, scientists have conducted hundreds of experiments investigating responses of ecosystems to global environmental change. Ecoss synthesizes many of these responses using a statistical technique called meta-analysis. This approach considers all the measurements together and Read more
Overview Most global change research focuses on individual components, but the environment is changing in multiple ways simultaneously. The Jasper Ridge Global Change Experiment seeks to find out how these combined changes will affect ecosystems. Researchers tested the response of Read more
Several Ecoss members presented at the 2015 AGU fall meeting. Topics ranged from permafrost C cycle responses to climate change, to priming effects on soil C, to forest fires in the Arctic. Below you can find an overview of the presentations; click on the Read more
Congratulations to Dr. Ember Morrissey, who will begin her new job as Assistant Professor of Environmental Microbiology at West Virginia University in January 2016. Professor Morrissey will join the Division of Plant and Soil Sciences in the Davis College of Agriculture, Read more
Soil microorganisms are biogeochemical forces of global significance. They affect nutrient availability to plants, the amount of carbon stored in soils, and the evolution of the atmosphere over geologic time. The research we conduct in Ecoss examines many aspects of Read more