As leaves are the basic elements of plants that conduct photosynthesis and transpiration, vegetation leaf dynamics controls canopy physical and biogeochemical processes and hence largely influences the interactive exchanges of energy and materials between the land surface and the atmosphere. Given that the processes of plant leaf allocation is highly […]
Future droughts are expected to become more severe and frequent under future climate change scenarios, likely causing widespread tree mortality in the western USA. Coping with an uncertain future requires an understanding of long-term ecosystem responses in areas where prolonged drought is projected to increase. Tree-ring records are ideally suited […]
Aridisols are the dominant soil type in drylands, which occupy one-third of Earth’s terrestrial surface. We examined controls on biogeographical patterns of Aridisol prokaryotic (bacterial and archaeal) communities at a regional scale by comparing communities from 100 Aridisols throughout the southwestern United States using high-throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA […]
Understanding impacts of drought on tree growth and forest health is of major concern given projected climate change. Droughts may become more common in the Southwest due to extreme temperatures that will drive increased evapotranspiration and lower soil moisture, in combination with uncertain precipitation changes. Utilizing ~1.3 million tree-ring widths […]
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 […]
Projecting the response of forests to changing climate requires understanding how biotic and abiotic controls on tree growth will change over time. As temperature and interannual precipitation variability increase, the overall forest response is likely to be influenced by species-specific responses to changing climate. Management actions that alter composition and […]
The boreal region stores a large proportion of the world’s terrestrial carbon (C) and is subject to high-intensity, stand-replacing wildfires that release C and nitrogen (N) stored in biomass and soils through combustion. While severity and extent of fires drives overall emissions, methods for accurately estimating fire severity are poorly […]
Monsoon precipitation in the arid southwestern United States is an important driver of ecosystem productivity, delivering up to 50% of annual precipitation during the summer months. These sporadic rainfall events typify drying-rewetting cycles and impose a physiological stress on the soil microbial communities responsible for carbon and nutrient cycling. As […]
Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests of the southwestern United States are a mosaic of stands where undisturbed forests are carbon sinks, and stands recovering from wildfires may be sources of carbon to the atmosphere for decades after the fire. However, the relative magnitude of these sinks and sources has never […]
Changing climate and a legacy of fire-exclusion have increased the probability of high-severity wildfire, leading to an increased risk of forest carbon loss in ponderosa pine forests in the southwestern USA. Efforts to reduce high-severity fire risk through forest thinning and prescribed burning require both the removal and emission of […]