Forest Recovery from Hurricane Disturbances

Hurricanes are a major disturbance to tropical forests. We used census observations at Bisley Experimental Watersheds (BEW) in Puerto Rico to study the mortality after hurricane Hugo in 1989 and after hurricane Maria in 2017 and the subsequent recovery of the forest after hurricane Hugo between 1989 and 2014 (the last census before hurricane Maria). We found that hurricane-induced mortality varied with species/plant functional types (PFTs) and stem sizes. Specifically, palms had the lowest mortality, followed by mid and late...

Talk Title:  The Necromass of Borneo

Abstract: Abstract: Now more than ever we need to understand how peatlands are formed, how they thrive, and how they can be maintained to control CO2 emissions. I will describe results from a unique field program in Borneo designed to study the coupled ecological and hydrological processes that operate in tropical peatlands. We show how tropical peatlands exist because of a positive feedback between peat accumulation and water table rise. Organic material from tropical rain forests accumulates over millennia in...

Talk Title:  The Necromass of Borneo

Abstract: Abstract: Now more than ever we need to understand how peatlands are formed, how they thrive, and how they can be maintained to control CO2 emissions. I will describe results from a unique field program in Borneo designed to study the coupled ecological and hydrological processes that operate in tropical peatlands. We show how tropical...

Talk Title:  Reconstructions of Cenozoic atmospheric CO2 and ocean carbon cycle perturbations

Abstract:  My research interests focus on understanding the role of the ocean, and in particular the role of marine carbonate chemistry in global climate change. As I was originally trained as a (marine) biologist, my way of approaching paleoceanographic questions often...

Talk Title:  Climatic effects of local land cover and land use change

Abstract: 

Land cover on the Earth’s surface typically varies at spatial scales smaller than the grid size of a climate model. Similarly, contemporary land use activities, such as urbanization and deforestation, are occurring at local scales than cannot be resolved by climate models. Heterogeneity in land cover causes spatial variability in...

Talk Title:  Carbon-Water cycle interactions from a measurement and modeling perspective

Abstract:  Stomata act as the gate-keeper of carbon uptake and transpiration water losses and can control regional-scale fluxes. Recent studies have found that soil moisture variations are a dominant driver for inter-annual variations in the atmospheric CO2 growth rate, both...

Talk Title:  Lessons Learned about the Breathing of the Biosphere, from a Californian Network of Greenhouse Gas Flux Measurement Towers

Abstract:  This talk will revolve around lessons learned by collecting quasi-continuous and long term trace gas fluxes from a network of managed and natural fields sites across California. We will investigate if and how fluxes are...