Paul C. Selmants
Dr. Paul Selmants is a Research Ecologist with the Western Geographic Science Center at Moffett Field, CA. His research seeks to quantify how terrestrial ecosystems respond to drought and land management practices at regional to continental scales.
Paul uses data synthesis, geospatial analysis, and simulation modeling to examine the influence of drought, disturbance and land use change on ecosystem functioning at large spatial scales. His research focus is on the western continental United States and the Hawaiian Islands.
Professional Experience
2020 – present: Research Ecologist, USGS Western Geographic Science Center
2016 - 2020: Research Physical Scientist, USGS Western Geographic Science Center
2012-16: Research Faculty, University of Hawaii at Manoa
2008 – 2011: Postdoctoral Scholar, University of California, Santa Cruz
2007-08: Postdoc, Northern Arizona University
Education and Certifications
2007: Ph.D. Forest Science, Northern Arizona University
2000: M.S. Botany, University of Wyoming
1996: B.S. Botany, Miami University of Ohio
Affiliations and Memberships*
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Ecological Society of America (ESA)
Society for Open, Reliable, and Transparent Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (SORTEE)
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 16
Will there be water? Climate change, housing needs, and future water demand in California
Climate change in California is expected to alter future water availability, impacting water supplies needed to support future housing growth and agriculture demand. In groundwater-dependent regions like California's Central Coast, new land-use related water demand and decreasing recharge is already stressing depleted groundwater basins. We developed a spatially explicit state-and...
Authors
Tamara Wilson, Paul Selmants, Ryan M Boynton, James H. Thorne, N. Van Schmidt, Timothy Thomas
Toward a US framework for continuity of satellite observations of Earth's climate and for supporting societal resilience
There is growing urgency for improved public and commercial services to support a resilient, secure, and thriving United States (US) in the face of mounting decision-support needs for environmental stewardship and hazard response, as well as for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Sustained space-based Earth observations are critical infrastructure to support the delivery of...
Authors
Duane E. Waliser, Waleed Abdalati, Nancy Baker, Stacey Boland, Michael Bonadonna, Carol Anne Clayson, Belay Demoz, Kelsey Foster, Christian Frankenburg, Maria Hakuba, Therese Jorgensen, Ryan J. Kramer, Daniel Limonadi, Anna M. Michalak, Asal Naseri, Pat Patterson, Peter Pilewskie, Steven Platnick, Charlie Powell, Jeff Privette, Chris Ruf, Tapio Schneider, Jorg Schulz, Paul Selmants, Rashmi Shah, Qianqian Song, Graeme Stephens, Timothy S. Stryker
Resilience of riparian vegetation productivity to early 21st century drought in northern California, USA
Drought and intensive land use can interact as stressors on riparian vegetation, especially along rivers flowing through seasonally dry landscapes. Knowledge of past riparian vegetation response to drought and land use change can provide land managers with a better understanding of changes induced by upstream management actions, climate change, and chronic stressors. To investigate the...
Authors
Paul Selmants, Caroline Rose Conrad, Tamara Wilson, Miguel L. Villarreal
Ecosystem carbon balance in the Hawaiian Islands under different scenarios of future climate and land use change
The State of Hawai'i passed legislation to be carbon neutral by 2045, a goal that will partly depend on carbon sequestration by terrestrial ecosystems. However, there is considerable uncertainty surrounding the future direction and magnitude of the land carbon sink in the Hawaiian Islands. We used the Land Use and Carbon Scenario Simulator (LUCAS), a spatially explicit stochastic...
Authors
Paul Selmants, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Jinxun Liu, Tamara Wilson, Clay Trauernicht, Abby G. Frazier, Gregory P. Asner
Modeling watershed carbon dynamics as affected by land cover change and soil erosion
Process-based ecosystem carbon cycle models typically incorporate vegetation growth, vegetation mortality, and soil respiration as well as the biotic and environmental drivers that influence these variables. However, few spatially explicit process models can efficiently incorporate the influence of land cover change and carbon lateral movement at regional scales or high spatial...
Authors
Jinxun Liu, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Paul Selmants, Jiaojiao Diao, Qiang Zhou, Bruce Worstell, Monica Mei Jeen Moritsch
Trait-based filtering mediates the effects of realistic biodiversity losses on ecosystem functioning
Biodiversity losses are a major driver of global changes in ecosystem functioning. While most studies of the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning have examined randomized species losses, trait-based filtering associated with species-specific vulnerability to drivers of diversity loss can strongly influence how ecosystem functioning responds to declining...
Authors
Amelia A. Wolf, Jennifer L. Funk, Paul Selmants, Connor N Morozumi, Daniel L. Hernandez, Jae R Pasari, Erika S Zavaleta
A new remote sensing-based Carbon Sequestration Potential Index (CSPI): A tool to support land carbon management
Integrating remote sensing into assessments of carbon stocks and fluxes has advanced our understanding of how global change affects landscapes and our capacity to support decision making about forest management. However, there remains a lack of detailed and actionable analyses conducted across widely ranging environmental conditions that are appropriate for tactical planning. We used...
Authors
Adrian Pascual, Christian P. Giardina, Paul Selmants, Leah J Laramee, Gregory P. Asner
Shaping land use change and ecosystem restoration in a water-stressed agricultural landscape to achieve multiple benefits
Irrigated agriculture has grown rapidly over the last 50 years, helping food production keep pace with population growth, but also leading to significant habitat and biodiversity loss globally. Now, in some regions, land degradation and overtaxed water resources mean historical production levels may need to be reduced. We demonstrate how analytically supported planning for habitat...
Authors
Benjamin P. Bryant, T. Rodd Kelsey, Adrian L. Vogl, Stacie A. Wolny, Duncan J. MacEwan, Paul Selmants, Tanushree Biswas, H. Scott Butterfield
Genetic variation in tree leaf chemistry predicts the abundance and activity of autotrophic soil microorganisms
Genetic variation in the chemistry of plant leaves can have ecosystem-level consequences. Here we address the hypothesis that genetic variation in foliar condensed tannins along a Populus hybridization gradient influence soil ammonia oxidizers, autotrophic microorganisms that perform the first step of nitrification and are not dependent on carbon derived from plant photosynthesis...
Authors
Paul Selmants, Jennifer A. Schweitzer, Karen L. Adair, Liza M. Holeski, Richard L Lindroth, Stephen C. Hart, Thomas G. Whitham
Effects of 21st century climate, land use, and disturbances on ecosystem carbon balance in California
Terrestrial ecosystems are an important sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), sequestering ~30% of annual anthropogenic emissions and slowing the rise of atmospheric CO2. However, the future direction and magnitude of the land sink is highly uncertain. We examined how historical and projected changes in climate, land use, and ecosystem disturbances affect the carbon balance of...
Authors
Benjamin M. Sleeter, David Marvin, D. Richard Cameron, Paul Selmants, LeRoy Westerling, Jason R. Kreitler, Colin Daniel, Jinxun Liu, Tamara Wilson
Actinorhizal species influence plant and soil nitrogen status of semiarid shrub-dominated ecosystems in the western Great Basin, USA
Actinorhizal plants form symbiotic root associations with dinitrogen (N2) fixing Frankia and are abundant in North American cold deserts. However, the extent to which actinorhizal species are actively fixing N2 or altering ecosystem nitrogen (N) availability remains unclear. We used the 15N natural abundance technique to measure how three widespread actinorhizal species in the western...
Authors
Stephanie M. Freund, Fiona M. Soper, Simon R. Poulson, Paul C. Selmants, Benjamin W. Sullivan
Effects of contemporary land-use and land-cover change on the carbon balance of terrestrial ecosystems in the United States
Changes in land use and land cover (LULC) can have profound effects on terrestrial carbon dynamics, yet their effects on the global carbon budget remain uncertain. While land change impacts on ecosystem carbon dynamics have been the focus of numerous studies, few efforts have been based on observational data incorporating multiple ecosystem types spanning large geographic areas over long...
Authors
Benjamin M. Sleeter, Jinxun Liu, Colin Daniel, Bronwyn Rayfield, Jason T. Sherba, Todd Hawbaker, Zhiliang Zhu, Paul Selmants, Thomas R. Loveland
Non-USGS Publications**
Asner, GP, S Sousan, DE Knapp, PC Selmants, RE Martin, RF Hughes, and CP Giardina (2016) Rapid forest carbon assessment of oceanic islands: a case study of the Hawaiian archipelago. Carbon Balance and Management, 11:1. DOI: 10.1186/s13021-015-0043-4.
Selmants, PC, KL Adair, CM Litton, CP Giardina, and E Schwartz (2016) Increases in mean annual temperature do not alter soil bacterial community structure in tropical montane wet forests. Ecosphere 7(4):e01296. DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.1296
Hernandez, DL, DM Vallano, ES Zavaleta, Z Tzankova, JR Pasari, S Weiss, PC Selmants, and C.M. Morozumi (2016) Nitrogen pollution is linked to to US listed species declines. BioScience 66: 213-222. DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biw003
Bothwell LD, PC Selmants, CP Giardina, and CM Litton (2014) Leaf litter decomposition rates increase with rising mean annual temperature in Hawaiian tropical montane wet forests. PeerJ 2:e685. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.685
Selmants, PC, CM Litton, CP Giardina, and GP Asner (2014) Ecosystem carbon storage does not vary with mean annual temperature in Hawaiian tropical montane wet forests. Global Change Biology 20: 2927–2937. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.12636
**Disclaimer: The views expressed in Non-USGS publications are those of the author and do not represent the views of the USGS, Department of the Interior, or the U.S. Government.
Land Use and Climate Change Team
We are a research team focusing on understanding the rates, causes, and consequences of land change across a range of geographic and temporal scales. Our emphasis is on developing alternative future projections and quantifying the impact on environmental systems, in particular, the role of land-use change on ecosystem carbon dynamics. We are interested in how land-use and climate systems will...
Historical and projected future land change and ecosystem carbon stocks for California
This dataset consists of annual raster maps of ecosystem carbon stocks, land use and land cover classes, and transition probabilities for the State of California during historical (1985-2020) and projected future (2021-2100) time periods. Data are simulation model output from the The Land Use and Carbon Simulator (LUCAS; Sleeter et al. 2022) run under different climate and land...
Projected future groundwater balance for California Central Coast under different scenarios of land-use and climate change
Tabular data output from a series of groundwater modeling simulations for five counties along the Central Coast of California, USA. We used a spatially explicit state-and-transition simulation model with stocks and flows that integrates climate, land-use change, human water use, and groundwater gain-loss to examine the impact of future climate and land use change on groundwater balance...
Spatial data of California riparian vegetation productivity trends over time (2000-2020) and environmental covariates
This data release contains a shapefile of riparian vegetation communities attributed with information on trends in satellite-estimates of vegetation productivity for the period from 2000-2020. Cloud-masked Landsat data were processed from 2000 to 2020 to generate a 21-year growing season (June, July, and August) time series combining data from Landsat 5 (2000-2011), Landsat 7 (2012), and...
Frequency of forest change across the conterminous United States from 1985-2020
We summarized annual remote sensing land cover classifications from the U.S. Geological Survey Land Cover Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) annual time series to characterize the frequency of forest change across the conterminous United States (CONUS) between 1985-2020. Data include a raster map of CONUS with pixel values representing the number of years in which it was...
Land change and carbon balance projections for the Hawaiian Islands
Tabular data output from a series of modeling simulations for the seven main Hawaiian Islands. We used the LUCAS model to project changes in ecosystem carbon balance resulting from land use, land use change, climate change, and wildfire. The model was run at a 250-m spatial resolution on an annual timestep from the years 2010 to 2100. We simulated four unique scenarios, consisting of all...
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 16
Will there be water? Climate change, housing needs, and future water demand in California
Climate change in California is expected to alter future water availability, impacting water supplies needed to support future housing growth and agriculture demand. In groundwater-dependent regions like California's Central Coast, new land-use related water demand and decreasing recharge is already stressing depleted groundwater basins. We developed a spatially explicit state-and...
Authors
Tamara Wilson, Paul Selmants, Ryan M Boynton, James H. Thorne, N. Van Schmidt, Timothy Thomas
Toward a US framework for continuity of satellite observations of Earth's climate and for supporting societal resilience
There is growing urgency for improved public and commercial services to support a resilient, secure, and thriving United States (US) in the face of mounting decision-support needs for environmental stewardship and hazard response, as well as for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Sustained space-based Earth observations are critical infrastructure to support the delivery of...
Authors
Duane E. Waliser, Waleed Abdalati, Nancy Baker, Stacey Boland, Michael Bonadonna, Carol Anne Clayson, Belay Demoz, Kelsey Foster, Christian Frankenburg, Maria Hakuba, Therese Jorgensen, Ryan J. Kramer, Daniel Limonadi, Anna M. Michalak, Asal Naseri, Pat Patterson, Peter Pilewskie, Steven Platnick, Charlie Powell, Jeff Privette, Chris Ruf, Tapio Schneider, Jorg Schulz, Paul Selmants, Rashmi Shah, Qianqian Song, Graeme Stephens, Timothy S. Stryker
Resilience of riparian vegetation productivity to early 21st century drought in northern California, USA
Drought and intensive land use can interact as stressors on riparian vegetation, especially along rivers flowing through seasonally dry landscapes. Knowledge of past riparian vegetation response to drought and land use change can provide land managers with a better understanding of changes induced by upstream management actions, climate change, and chronic stressors. To investigate the...
Authors
Paul Selmants, Caroline Rose Conrad, Tamara Wilson, Miguel L. Villarreal
Ecosystem carbon balance in the Hawaiian Islands under different scenarios of future climate and land use change
The State of Hawai'i passed legislation to be carbon neutral by 2045, a goal that will partly depend on carbon sequestration by terrestrial ecosystems. However, there is considerable uncertainty surrounding the future direction and magnitude of the land carbon sink in the Hawaiian Islands. We used the Land Use and Carbon Scenario Simulator (LUCAS), a spatially explicit stochastic...
Authors
Paul Selmants, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Jinxun Liu, Tamara Wilson, Clay Trauernicht, Abby G. Frazier, Gregory P. Asner
Modeling watershed carbon dynamics as affected by land cover change and soil erosion
Process-based ecosystem carbon cycle models typically incorporate vegetation growth, vegetation mortality, and soil respiration as well as the biotic and environmental drivers that influence these variables. However, few spatially explicit process models can efficiently incorporate the influence of land cover change and carbon lateral movement at regional scales or high spatial...
Authors
Jinxun Liu, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Paul Selmants, Jiaojiao Diao, Qiang Zhou, Bruce Worstell, Monica Mei Jeen Moritsch
Trait-based filtering mediates the effects of realistic biodiversity losses on ecosystem functioning
Biodiversity losses are a major driver of global changes in ecosystem functioning. While most studies of the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning have examined randomized species losses, trait-based filtering associated with species-specific vulnerability to drivers of diversity loss can strongly influence how ecosystem functioning responds to declining...
Authors
Amelia A. Wolf, Jennifer L. Funk, Paul Selmants, Connor N Morozumi, Daniel L. Hernandez, Jae R Pasari, Erika S Zavaleta
A new remote sensing-based Carbon Sequestration Potential Index (CSPI): A tool to support land carbon management
Integrating remote sensing into assessments of carbon stocks and fluxes has advanced our understanding of how global change affects landscapes and our capacity to support decision making about forest management. However, there remains a lack of detailed and actionable analyses conducted across widely ranging environmental conditions that are appropriate for tactical planning. We used...
Authors
Adrian Pascual, Christian P. Giardina, Paul Selmants, Leah J Laramee, Gregory P. Asner
Shaping land use change and ecosystem restoration in a water-stressed agricultural landscape to achieve multiple benefits
Irrigated agriculture has grown rapidly over the last 50 years, helping food production keep pace with population growth, but also leading to significant habitat and biodiversity loss globally. Now, in some regions, land degradation and overtaxed water resources mean historical production levels may need to be reduced. We demonstrate how analytically supported planning for habitat...
Authors
Benjamin P. Bryant, T. Rodd Kelsey, Adrian L. Vogl, Stacie A. Wolny, Duncan J. MacEwan, Paul Selmants, Tanushree Biswas, H. Scott Butterfield
Genetic variation in tree leaf chemistry predicts the abundance and activity of autotrophic soil microorganisms
Genetic variation in the chemistry of plant leaves can have ecosystem-level consequences. Here we address the hypothesis that genetic variation in foliar condensed tannins along a Populus hybridization gradient influence soil ammonia oxidizers, autotrophic microorganisms that perform the first step of nitrification and are not dependent on carbon derived from plant photosynthesis...
Authors
Paul Selmants, Jennifer A. Schweitzer, Karen L. Adair, Liza M. Holeski, Richard L Lindroth, Stephen C. Hart, Thomas G. Whitham
Effects of 21st century climate, land use, and disturbances on ecosystem carbon balance in California
Terrestrial ecosystems are an important sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), sequestering ~30% of annual anthropogenic emissions and slowing the rise of atmospheric CO2. However, the future direction and magnitude of the land sink is highly uncertain. We examined how historical and projected changes in climate, land use, and ecosystem disturbances affect the carbon balance of...
Authors
Benjamin M. Sleeter, David Marvin, D. Richard Cameron, Paul Selmants, LeRoy Westerling, Jason R. Kreitler, Colin Daniel, Jinxun Liu, Tamara Wilson
Actinorhizal species influence plant and soil nitrogen status of semiarid shrub-dominated ecosystems in the western Great Basin, USA
Actinorhizal plants form symbiotic root associations with dinitrogen (N2) fixing Frankia and are abundant in North American cold deserts. However, the extent to which actinorhizal species are actively fixing N2 or altering ecosystem nitrogen (N) availability remains unclear. We used the 15N natural abundance technique to measure how three widespread actinorhizal species in the western...
Authors
Stephanie M. Freund, Fiona M. Soper, Simon R. Poulson, Paul C. Selmants, Benjamin W. Sullivan
Effects of contemporary land-use and land-cover change on the carbon balance of terrestrial ecosystems in the United States
Changes in land use and land cover (LULC) can have profound effects on terrestrial carbon dynamics, yet their effects on the global carbon budget remain uncertain. While land change impacts on ecosystem carbon dynamics have been the focus of numerous studies, few efforts have been based on observational data incorporating multiple ecosystem types spanning large geographic areas over long...
Authors
Benjamin M. Sleeter, Jinxun Liu, Colin Daniel, Bronwyn Rayfield, Jason T. Sherba, Todd Hawbaker, Zhiliang Zhu, Paul Selmants, Thomas R. Loveland
Non-USGS Publications**
Asner, GP, S Sousan, DE Knapp, PC Selmants, RE Martin, RF Hughes, and CP Giardina (2016) Rapid forest carbon assessment of oceanic islands: a case study of the Hawaiian archipelago. Carbon Balance and Management, 11:1. DOI: 10.1186/s13021-015-0043-4.
Selmants, PC, KL Adair, CM Litton, CP Giardina, and E Schwartz (2016) Increases in mean annual temperature do not alter soil bacterial community structure in tropical montane wet forests. Ecosphere 7(4):e01296. DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.1296
Hernandez, DL, DM Vallano, ES Zavaleta, Z Tzankova, JR Pasari, S Weiss, PC Selmants, and C.M. Morozumi (2016) Nitrogen pollution is linked to to US listed species declines. BioScience 66: 213-222. DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biw003
Bothwell LD, PC Selmants, CP Giardina, and CM Litton (2014) Leaf litter decomposition rates increase with rising mean annual temperature in Hawaiian tropical montane wet forests. PeerJ 2:e685. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.685
Selmants, PC, CM Litton, CP Giardina, and GP Asner (2014) Ecosystem carbon storage does not vary with mean annual temperature in Hawaiian tropical montane wet forests. Global Change Biology 20: 2927–2937. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.12636
**Disclaimer: The views expressed in Non-USGS publications are those of the author and do not represent the views of the USGS, Department of the Interior, or the U.S. Government.
Land Use and Climate Change Team
We are a research team focusing on understanding the rates, causes, and consequences of land change across a range of geographic and temporal scales. Our emphasis is on developing alternative future projections and quantifying the impact on environmental systems, in particular, the role of land-use change on ecosystem carbon dynamics. We are interested in how land-use and climate systems will...
Historical and projected future land change and ecosystem carbon stocks for California
This dataset consists of annual raster maps of ecosystem carbon stocks, land use and land cover classes, and transition probabilities for the State of California during historical (1985-2020) and projected future (2021-2100) time periods. Data are simulation model output from the The Land Use and Carbon Simulator (LUCAS; Sleeter et al. 2022) run under different climate and land...
Projected future groundwater balance for California Central Coast under different scenarios of land-use and climate change
Tabular data output from a series of groundwater modeling simulations for five counties along the Central Coast of California, USA. We used a spatially explicit state-and-transition simulation model with stocks and flows that integrates climate, land-use change, human water use, and groundwater gain-loss to examine the impact of future climate and land use change on groundwater balance...
Spatial data of California riparian vegetation productivity trends over time (2000-2020) and environmental covariates
This data release contains a shapefile of riparian vegetation communities attributed with information on trends in satellite-estimates of vegetation productivity for the period from 2000-2020. Cloud-masked Landsat data were processed from 2000 to 2020 to generate a 21-year growing season (June, July, and August) time series combining data from Landsat 5 (2000-2011), Landsat 7 (2012), and...
Frequency of forest change across the conterminous United States from 1985-2020
We summarized annual remote sensing land cover classifications from the U.S. Geological Survey Land Cover Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) annual time series to characterize the frequency of forest change across the conterminous United States (CONUS) between 1985-2020. Data include a raster map of CONUS with pixel values representing the number of years in which it was...
Land change and carbon balance projections for the Hawaiian Islands
Tabular data output from a series of modeling simulations for the seven main Hawaiian Islands. We used the LUCAS model to project changes in ecosystem carbon balance resulting from land use, land use change, climate change, and wildfire. The model was run at a 250-m spatial resolution on an annual timestep from the years 2010 to 2100. We simulated four unique scenarios, consisting of all...
*Disclaimer: Listing outside positions with professional scientific organizations on this Staff Profile are for informational purposes only and do not constitute an endorsement of those professional scientific organizations or their activities by the USGS, Department of the Interior, or U.S. Government