A brand new staff member at Northern Arizona University’s Center for Ecosystem Science and Society, Leshyk’s charge is to use the power of art to help interpret and communicate science produced by the center’s researchers as well as others at the university. It’s a unique opportunity to highlight fascinating science that […]
Scientists believe that biochar, the partially burned remains of plants, has been used as fertilizer for at least 2,000 years in the Amazon Basin. Since initial studies published several years ago promoted biochar, farmers around the world have been using it as a soil additive to increase fertility and crop […]
Dams impound the majority of rivers and provide important societal benefits, especially daily water releases that enable on-peak hydroelectricity generation. Such “hydropeaking” is common worldwide, but its downstream impacts remain unclear. We evaluated the response of aquatic insects, a cornerstone of river food webs, to hydropeaking using a life history–hydrodynamic […]
Terrestrial plant and soil respiration, or ecosystem respiration (Reco), represents a major CO2 flux in the global carbon cycle. However, there is disagreement in how Reco will respond to future global changes, such as elevated atmosphere CO2 and warming. To address this, we synthesized six years (2007–2012) of Reco data […]
Stomata simultaneously regulate plant carbon gain and water loss, and patterns of stomatal conductance (gs) provide insight into water use strategies. In arid systems, gs varies seasonally based on factors such as water availability and temperature. Moreover, the presence and species identity of neighboring plants likely affects gs of the […]
Spatio-temporal fields of land–atmosphere fluxes derived from data-driven models can complement simulations by process-based land surface models. While a number of strategies for empirical models with eddy-covariance flux data have been applied, a systematic intercomparison of these methods has been missing so far. In this study, we performed a cross-validation […]
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 […]
Patterns of carbon source utilization, or community-level physiological profiles (CLPP), produced from direct incubation of environmental samples in BIOLOG microplates can consistently discriminate spatial and temporal gradients within microbial communities. While the resolving power of the assay appears significant, the basis for the differences in the patterns of sole carbon […]
Structural and physiological changes that occur as trees grow taller are associated with increased hydraulic constraints on leaf gas exchange, yet it is unclear if leaf-level constraints influence whole-tree growth as trees approach their maximum size. We examined variation in leaf physiology, leaf area to sapwood area ratio (L/S), and […]