Tree-Ring Talk

Fractional Snow Cover Estimation in Complex Alpine-forested Environments Using an Artificial Neural Network

There is an undisputed need to increase accuracy of snow cover estimation in regions comprised of complex terrain, especially in areas dependent on winter snow accumulation for a substantial portion of their annual water supply, such as the Western United States, Central Asia, and the Andes.

What We Did This Past Summer

Grad students, faculty and staff are each given a couple of minutes to talk about their activities this past summer using no more than 3 slides.  A wide variety of locations and activities will be described.

Spatial and temporal dynamics of disturbance interactions along an ecological gradient of the Pinaleño Mountains, Arizona, USA

The onset of fire exclusion in the western United States began one of the largest and most effective landscape ecology experiments in human history. Structural and species changes to forests of western North America have transformed how these ecosystems now respond to natural and anthropogenic disturbances and may contribute to recent trends of more frequent high-severity wildfires and insect outbreaks.

Cordilleran Forest Scaling Dynamics and Disturbance Regimes Quantified by Aerial Lidar

Semi-arid forests are in a period of rapid transition as a result of unprecedented landscape scale fires, insect outbreaks, drought, and anthropogenic land use practices. Understanding how historically episodic disturbances led to coherent forest structural and spatial patterns that promoted resilience and resistance is a critical part of addressing change. Here I apply metabolic scaling theory (MST) to examine scaling behavior and structural patterns of semi-arid conifer forests in Arizona and New Mexico.

Dendroarchaeology in the Western Mediterranean: tree-rings from Iberian cultural and natural heritage to bridge the last two millennia

archaeological wood and woodland landscapes

Moroccan Forests

Present and Future dendrochronological research in Lebanon.

The presentation will be an overview of Lebanon topography, climate, and forest types. It will discuss the different biop-climatic zones and forest types and species found in these zones. The forest products, services, and decline it will also be discussed. Finally, the presentation will focus on past, present, and future dendrochronological research in Lebanon.

The Role of Invasive Earthworms as Ecosystem Engineers and the Associated Implications for Tree-Ring Research in the Great Lakes Region of North America

European earthworms have only recently been recognized as an invasive threat to the hardwood forests of the Great Lakes Region of North America, yet mounting evidence indicates that the invasion of earthworms into forests that had been earthworm-free since at least the last glacial maximum is profoundly and fundamentally altering nutrient cycling, soil structure, and the forest floor communities of these ecosystems. Less attention has been given to how earthworm invasions influence tree growth and productivity.

Climate and Community Assembly in Central Appalachian Forests

The speaker is using dendrochronology to build species-specific growth models that describe how climate influences tree growth in a region where competition for light tends to dominate regeneration and community assembly dynamics.

A continental-scale approach to understanding climate-sensitivity in Douglas-fir

Douglas-fir is the most widespread commerical conifer species in the US and occurs across almost all mountain ranges in the western US.  I have built a network of chronologies across the US range of Douglas-fir to (1) identify where the species is water-limited versus energy-limited, and (2) understand the spatial and temporal dynamics of any quantifiable differences in limiting factors.

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