Increasing temperatures in northern high latitudes are causing permafrost to thaw, making large amounts of previously frozen organic matter vulnerable to microbial decomposition. Permafrost thaw also creates a fragmented landscape of drier and wetter soil conditions that determine the amount and form (carbon dioxide (CO2), or methane (CH4)) of carbon (C) released […]
When new carbon enters soil, especially carbon that is easily assimilated and decomposed by soil microorganisms, a chain reaction occurs leading to the breakdown of older soil carbon, carbon that would otherwise have remained stable. Current theory does not explain this chain reaction, sometimes called the “priming effect.” But understanding […]
Ecological memory stored in a landscape can help an ecosystem recover from disturbances like fire and outbreaks of disease. But what happens when climate warming disrupts that process? How long before ecological memories stored in the warming Arctic are overwritten by new ones, and what does that mean for the […]
ESSTE is a unique, 3-semester internship and mentorship opportunity for undergraduate students to help prepare the next generation to address the challenge of increasing drought, fires, and floods. The ESSTE program is in response to an awareness that there is a lack of job training and placement in fields related […]
In 2002, the Odyssey probe discovered evidence of past ice on Mars. The U.S. Congress authorized the Iraq War resolution. The Anaheim Angels won the World Series. And in a meadow 15 miles north of Flagstaff, scientists began to monitor and move small plots of soil along a mountain gradient […]
By the end of this century, permafrost in the rapidly warming Arctic will likely emit as much carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere as a large industrial nation, and potentially more than the U.S. has emitted since the start of the industrial revolution. But that’s only one possible future […]
The tiny cosmos of organisms living on a streamer of algae in a river—the algal microbiome—could help scientists learn what turns an environment from healthy to toxic and back again. A multidisciplinary team led by Northern Arizona University has won $3 million from the National Science Foundation to translate the […]
On a recent weekday morning, I logged on to a zoom session of Mrs. Mathew’s summer science class at Greyhills Academy High School in Tuba City. A picture of two giant heaps of soil appeared on the screen, and then an image of Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park. […]
In this work we define a spatial concordance coefficient for second-order stationary processes. This problem has been widely addressed in a non-spatial context, but here we consider a coefficient that for a fixed spatial lag allows one to compare two spatial sequences along a 45°line. The proposed coefficient was explored […]
Climate change is altering disturbance regimes outside historical norms, which can impact biodiversity by selecting for plants with particular traits. The relative impact of disturbance characteristics on plant traits and community structure may be mediated by environmental gradients. We aimed to understand how wildfire impacted understory plant communities and plant […]