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Theme 1: Patterns of ecosystem sensitivity to climate variability and extremes. An important part of anticipating and adapting to the impacts of climate change is an understanding of where climate impacts will be greatest. To this end, the lab is increasingly interested in elucidating the patterns of ecosystem sensitivity to climate variability and extremes. This involves integrating diverse spatiotemporal datasets of ecosystem function, such as primary productivity, and climate such as rainfall. The figure to the right is a map of the sensitivity of drylands net primary production to annual variation in rainfall.
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Theme 2: Mechanisms of ecosystem sensitivity to climate variability and extremes. Ecosystems often vary in their sensitivity to climatic variability and extremes, but it is poorly understood why. Thus, an important part of anticipating and adapting to climate change is understanding why ecosystems vary in their sensitivity to changes in climate To this end, the lab conducts field experiments directly manipulating weather patterns to uncover the key drivers and attributes of both ecosystems and climate producing variation in ecosystem responses to climate change.
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Precipitation manipulation field experiment in the semi-arid shortgrass steppe of Colorado.
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Theme 3: Interactions between different dimensions of climate variability and extremes. Climate change projections include a continued increase in temperature, atmospheric dryness, a greater frequency of droughts, as well a greater proportion of total rainfall being delivered in individual deluge events. These co-occurring dimensions of climate change are likely to interact and produce emergent and perhaps surprising ecosystem dynamics; ecosystem function could theoretically be ‘rescued’ from drought if a properly timed deluge event also co-occurred. Thus, the lab is increasingly interested in how different dimensions of climate change may interact to impact the functioning of ecosystems.
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