Publications
Publications, scientific literature, and information products from the Land Change Science Program.
Filter Total Items: 562
What mediates tree mortality during drought in the southern Sierra Nevada?
Severe drought has the potential to cause selective mortality within a forest, thereby inducing shifts in forest species composition. The southern Sierra Nevada foothills and mountains of California have experienced extensive forest dieback due to drought stress and insect outbreak. We used high-fidelity imaging spectroscopy (HiFIS) and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) from the Carnegie Airborn
Authors
Tarin Paz-Kagan, Philip Brodrick, Nicholas R. Vaughn, Adrian J. Das, Nathan L. Stephenson, Koren R. Nydick, Gregory P. Asner
A record of change - Science and elder observations on the Navajo Nation
A Record of Change - Science and Elder Observations on the Navajo Nation is a 25-minute documentary about combining observations from Navajo elders with conventional science to determine how tribal lands and culture are affected by climate change. On the Navajo Nation, there is a shortage of historical climate data, making it difficult to assess changing environmental conditions.This video reveals
Authors
Margaret M. Hiza-Redsteer, Stephen M. Wessells
The Great Acceleration and the disappearing surficial geologic record
The surficial geologic record is the relatively thin veneer of young (<~1 Ma) and mostly unconsolidated sediments that cover portions of Earth’s terrestrial surface (Fig. 1). Once largely ignored as “overburden” by geologists, surficial deposits are now studied to address a wide range of issues related to the sustainability of human societies. Geologists use surficial deposits to determine the fre
Authors
Jason A. Rech, Kathleen B. Springer, Jeffrey S. Pigati
Fatal attraction? Intraguild facilitation and suppression among predators
Competition and suppression are recognized as dominant forces that structure predator communities. Facilitation via carrion provisioning, however, is a ubiquitous interaction among predators that could offset the strength of suppression. Understanding the relative importance of these positive and negative interactions is necessary to anticipate community-wide responses to apex predator declines an
Authors
Kelly J. Sivy, Casey B. Pozzanghera, James B. Grace, Laura R. Prugh
Assessing coastal wetland vulnerability to sea-level rise along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast: Gaps and opportunities for developing a coordinated regional sampling network
Coastal wetland responses to sea-level rise are greatly influenced by biogeomorphic processes that affect wetland surface elevation. Small changes in elevation relative to sea level can lead to comparatively large changes in ecosystem structure, function, and stability. The surface elevation table-marker horizon (SET-MH) approach is being used globally to quantify the relative contributions of pro
Authors
Michael J. Osland, Kereen T. Griffith, Jack C. Larriviere, Laura C. Feher, Donald R. Cahoon, Nicholas M. Enwright, David A. Oster, John M. Tirpak, Mark S. Woodrey, Renee C. Collini, Joseph J. Baustian, Joshua L. Breithaupt, Julia A Cherry, Jeremy R. Conrad, Nicole Cormier, Carlos A. Coronado-Molina, Joseph F. Donoghue, Sean A. Graham, Jennifer W. Harper, Mark W. Hester, Rebecca J. Howard, Ken W. Krauss, Daniel Kroes, Robert R. Lane, Karen L. McKee, Irving A. Mendelssohn, Beth A. Middleton, Jena A. Moon, Sarai Piazza, Nicole M. Rankin, Fred H. Sklar, Gregory D. Steyer, Kathleen M. Swanson, Christopher M. Swarzenski, William Vervaeke, Jonathan M Willis, K. Van Wilson
Improving predictions of tropical forest response to climate change through integration of field studies and ecosystem modeling
Tropical forests play a critical role in carbon and water cycles at a global scale. Rapid climate change is anticipated in tropical regions over the coming decades and, under a warmer and drier climate, tropical forests are likely to be net sources of carbon rather than sinks. However, our understanding of tropical forest response and feedback to climate change is very limited. Efforts to model cl
Authors
Xiaohui Feng, María Uriarte, Grizelle González, Sasha C. Reed, Jill Thompson, Jess K. Zimmerman, Lora Murphy
Fine-resolution repeat topographic surveying of dryland landscapes using UAS-based structure-from-motion photogrammetry: Assessing accuracy and precision against traditional ground-based erosion measurements
Structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry from unmanned aerial system (UAS) imagery is an emerging tool for repeat topographic surveying of dryland erosion. These methods are particularly appealing due to the ability to cover large landscapes compared to field methods and at reduced costs and finer spatial resolution compared to airborne laser scanning. Accuracy and precision of high-resolution d
Authors
Jeffrey K. Gillian, Jason W. Karl, Ahmed Elaksher, Michael C. Duniway
Structural overshoot of tree growth with climate variability and the global spectrum of drought-induced forest dieback
Ongoing climate change poses significant threats to plant function and distribution. Increased temperatures and altered precipitation regimes amplify drought frequency and intensity, elevating plant stress and mortality. Large-scale forest mortality events will have far-reaching impacts on carbon and hydrological cycling, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. However, biogeographical theory and gl
Authors
Alistair S. Jump, Paloma Ruiz-Benito, Sarah Greenwood, Craig D. Allen, Thomas Kitzberger, Rod Fensham, Jordi Martínez-Vilalta, Francisco Lloret
Climate-driven variability in the occurrence of major floods across North America and Europe
Concern over the potential impact of anthropogenic climate change on flooding has led to a proliferation of studies examining past flood trends. Many studies have analysed annual-maximum flow trends but few have quantified changes in major (25–100 year return period) floods, i.e. those that have the greatest societal impacts. Existing major-flood studies used a limited number of very large catchme
Authors
Glenn A. Hodgkins, Paul H. Whitfield, Donald H. Burn, Jamie Hannaford, Benjamin Renard, Kerstin Stahl, Anne K. Fleig, Henrik Madsen, Luis Mediero, Johanna Korhonen, Conor Murphy, Donna Wilson
Spectrally monitoring the response of the biocrust moss Syntrichia caninervis to altered precipitation regimes
Climate change is expected to impact drylands worldwide by increasing temperatures and changing precipitation patterns. These effects have known feedbacks to the functional roles of dryland biological soil crust communities (biocrusts), which are expected to undergo significant climate-induced changes in community structure and function. Nevertheless, our ability to monitor the status and physiolo
Authors
Kristina E. Young, Sasha C. Reed
The Tule Springs local fauna: Rancholabrean vertebrates from the Las Vegas Formation, Nevada
A middle to late Pleistocene sedimentary sequence in the upper Las Vegas Wash, north of Las Vegas, Nevada, has yielded the largest open-site Rancholabrean vertebrate fossil assemblage in the southern Great Basin and Mojave Deserts. Recent paleontologic field studies have led to the discovery of hundreds of fossil localities and specimens, greatly extending the geographic and temporal footprint of
Authors
Eric Scott, Kathleen B. Springer, James C. Sagebiel
Abundant carbon substrates drive extremely high sulfate reduction rates and methane fluxes in Prairie Pothole Wetlands
Inland waters are increasingly recognized as critical sites of methane emissions to the atmosphere, but the biogeochemical reactions driving such fluxes are less well understood. The Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of North America is one of the largest wetland complexes in the world, containing millions of small, shallow wetlands. The sediment pore waters of PPR wetlands contain some of the highest
Authors
Paula Martins, David W. Hoyt, Sheel Bansal, Christopher T. Mills, Malak Tfaily, Brian Tangen, Raymond Finocchiaro, Michael D. Johnston, Brandon C. McAdams, Matthew J. Solensky, Garrett J. Smith, Yu-Ping Chin, Michael J. Wilkins