1. Monthly archive

January 2023

Ceci n’est pas un arbre: How to draw a functional tree.

Tree-ring growth is a daily scaled process, where endogenous and environmental components orchestrate wood formation through a series of developmental events that can be monitored studying plant phenology. Recent studies demonstrate that the temporal dynamics of wood formation inferred from phenology monitoring are excellent markers of tree sensitivity to weather and climate fluctuations. Encompassing for acclimation and adaptation components, wood developmental dynamics provide indeed for excellent metrics to predict tree-ring growth and productivity.

Tree growth and hydrology in Southeastern South America: how tree rings reveal the history of climate and streamflow in Uruguay

Tree-ring research is expanding into savanna and grassland biomes, where trees are a relatively scarce yet valuable source of historical data on climate history.

Linking science and policy: building bridges between research and decision making

In the face of current societal, public health, and environmental challenges, the use of science in public policy is more critical than ever. Understanding the process and practicalities of how environmental systems work is critical for predicting and managing systems in an ever-changing climate. Similarly, understanding the process and practicalities of local, state, and federal policy allows scientists and science-policy professionals to effectively engage in the policy process.

Synchronism, causality and determinism in wood formation: a question of time

Trees synchronize the cycles of growth and dormancy with the seasonal variations in weather, an essential aspect in ecosystems characterized by wide differences between seasons favorable and unfavorable to the physiological activities. Wood formation, or xylogenesis, is a complex and fascinating example of an intermittent growth process sensitive to temperature that can be studied at several time scales. The period of wood formation is the time window during which the xylem is under differentiation.

Assessing the climate feedbacks of U.S. Southwestern dryland forests and woodlands.

Like other dryland regions around the world, the U.S. Southwest is on a steep trajectory towards a hotter and drier climate. Among the most conspicuous effects of this drying are large-scale vegetation transitions towards sparser systems and lower growth forms. Such structural transformations will have far-reaching consequences for ecosystem functioning and for the climate feedbacks of dryland vegetation. These feedbacks remain undervalued and understudied in a climate mitigation context, because drylands sequester less carbon per area compared to more mesic systems.

Tropical explorations: what tree rings can contribute to studying global change effects in the tropics

Tropical forests and woodlands are key components of the global carbon cycle, as illustrated by the strong contribution of tropical vegetation to the inter-annual variation in the global carbon sink. These strong fluctuations in the carbon land sink are associated with precipitation and temperature anomalies, suggesting a strong component of vegetation productivity. Yet, the extent to which such associations also exist for carbon storage in tree stems is poorly understood.

Stronger together: Asynchronous tree growth dampens the impacts of accelerated climate change in a temperate rainforest

In this talk, I will introduce the idea that ecosystems located near glaciers can serve as natural laboratories for global change biology and paleoclimate studies. This is because they have experienced climate changes that were amplified by nearby ice-margin fluctuations. I will report on results from one of these natural experiments in the old-growth temperate rainforest near La Perouse Glacier in Southeast Alaska. We used dendrochronology to observe how tree growth responded to a shift from “normal” to accentuated rates of summer temperature change that occurred in the mid 1800s.

Hacienda de Gila: dendroarchaeology, architecture, and history at the Lyons and Campbell Ranch, Gila, New Mexico.

Buildings have stories. The materials, architecture, design, decoration and other attributes reveal life histories of a structure and often show changes through time. Sometimes, however, the stories are hidden and must be coaxed out of the building. Such is the case of the original Lyons and Campbell Ranch headquarters in Gila, New Mexico. Known in the 1890s as headquarters of the largest cattle ranch west of the Mississippi, the Lyons and Campbell Ranch actually has a much longer and more intriguing story.

Docent Training

College of Engineering Advisory Board Tour