PREMISE OF THE STUDY: The aboveground tissues of plants host numerous, ecologically important fungi, yet patterns in the spatial distribution of these fungi remain little known. Forest canopies in particular are vast reservoirs of fungal diversity, but intracrown variation in fungal communities has rarely been explored. Knowledge of how fungi […]
Ready to climb a California coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), to sample branches for fungi. In this issue, Harrison et al. delved into a largely unexplored reservoir of fungal diversity—the forest canopy—using a high-throughput sequence-based approach to characterize the composition of the fungal community at different heights within the crowns of […]
The land surface provides a boundary condition to atmospheric forward and flux inversion models. These models require prior estimates of CO2 fluxes at relatively high temporal resolutions (e.g., 3-hourly) because of the high frequency of atmospheric mixing and wind heterogeneity. However, land surface model CO2 fluxes are often provided at […]
Annual-based arable agroecosystems experience among the greatest frequency, extent and magnitude of disturbance regimes of all terrestrial ecosystems. In order to control non-crop vegetation, farmers implement tillage practices and/or utilize herbicides. These practices effectively shift the farmed ecosystems to early stages of secondary succession where they remain as long as […]
We examined the effects of growth carbon dioxide (CO2)concentration and soil nutrient availability on nitrogen (N)transformations and N trace gas fluxes in California grasslandmicrocosms during early-season wet-up, a time when rates of Ntransformation and N trace gas flux are high. After plant senescenceand summer drought, we simulated the first fall […]
The permafrost component of the cryosphere is changing dramatically, but the permafrost region is not well monitored and the consequences of change are not well understood. Changing permafrost interacts with ecosystems and climate on various spatial and temporal scales. The feedbacks resulting from these interactions range from local impacts on […]
Understanding how elevated atmospheric CO2 alters the formation and decomposition of soil organic carbon (SOC) is important but challenging. If elevated CO2 induces even small changes in rates of formation or decay of SOC, there could be substantial feedbacks on the atmosphere’s concentration of CO2. However, the long turnover times […]
Water drives the functioning of Earth’s arid and semiarid lands. Drylands can obtain water from sources other than precipitation, yet little is known about how non-rainfall water inputs influence dryland communities and their activity. In particular, water vapor adsorption – movement of atmospheric water vapor into soil when soil air […]
In Mediterranean-type ecosystems, nitrogen (N) accumulates in soil during dry summer months and rapidly becomes available during early season rain events. The availability of early season N could depend on the size of rainfall events, soil microbial activity, and phenology of the plant community. However, it is poorly understood how […]
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) has partnered with NAU to implement its Bridge Program. The goal is to increase the number of students from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups obtaining graduate degrees in the geosciences. As partners with AGU’s bridge program, NAU faculty help to fulfill this goal by demonstrating […]