climate change | School of Natural Resources

Climate change and ecosystems of the Southwestern USA

Authors:

Archer, Steve R; Predick, Katie I.

Source:

Rangelands, Volume 30, p.23-28 (2008)

climate change

MTNCLIM 2008 Mountain Climate Research Conference

Start time: 06/09/2008 - 12:00am

End time: 06/12/2008 - 11:59pm

Location:

Silverton CO

The MTNCLIM research conferences are sponsored by the Consortium for Integrated Climate Research on Western Mountains (CIRMOUNT), and are dedicated to mountain climate sciences and effects of climate variability on ecosystems, natural resources, and conservation in western North American mountains. A post-conference workshop for natural-resource managers is held to address implications of climate variability and climate change in conservation and resource management.

climate change

Learning the rhythm of the seasons in the face of global change: phenological research in the 21st Century

Authors:

Morisette, J. T.; Richardson, A.D.; Knapp, A. K.; Fisher, J. I.; Graham, E.; Abatzoglou, J.; Wilson, B. E.; Breshears, D. D.; Henebry, G. M.; Hanes, J. M.; Liang, L.

Source:

Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (In Press)

Keywords:

phenology; NPN; remote sensing; vegetation change

Tree die-off in response to global-change-type drought: mortality insights from a decade of plant water potential field measurements

Authors:

Breshears, D. D., O. B. Myers, C. W. Myer, F. J. Barnes, C. B. Zou, C. D. Allen, N. G. McDowell, and W. T. Pockman

Source:

Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (In Press)

Keywords:

drought; forestry; watershed; pinyon juniper; woodland; soil moisture; vegetation change

Carbon in the Desert

Short Description:

Can shrubs in desert grasslands mitigate climate change?

In recent decades, a worldwide trend of increasing woody plant abundance in grasslands and savannas has been reported. This proliferation of trees and shrubs move affects livestock production, wildlife habitat, water availability. At the same time their presence changes the way the ecosystem processes carbon and nitrogen, two important elements linked to climate change. SNR professor Steve Archer is interested in understanding how carbon and nitrogen stocks in ecosystems change as the systems shift from grassland to shrubland.

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David D. Breshears

Area of Expertise:

Dryland ecohydrology, vegetation dynamics including drought-triggered die-off, wind and water erosion, gradients of woody plants (grassland-forest continuum), ecosystem carbon dynamics, enabling improved decision making and management for land use, pollution, and global change.

Professor

Contact Information

daveb@email.arizona.edu

1 520-621-7259

School of Natural Resources, 325 Biosciences East
Tucson, AZ 85721

My research program is highly interdisciplinary and bridges diverse aspects of environmental science, largely from an ecosystems perspective. Much of my work lies within the mission of unraveling competing and interrelated processes in water-limited ecosystems within the grassland-forest continuum, gradients of woody plant coverage that include shrublands, savannas, and woodlands, as well as grasslands and forests. I am interested in interactions between woody and herbaceous plants and the associated patterns of canopy patches of woody plants and the intercanopy patches that separate them.