We welcome Josh Haussler to the Sala Lab. Josh recently has been accepted as a graduate student at ASU in the Environmental Life Sciences program. He has been part of the lab for several years and for several campaigns in the Chihuahuan Desert. We are looking forward to sharing with him many more fun times in the coming years.
New Paper
A new paper from the Sala Lab published today in Ecology (see Publications)! Lara Reichmann is the lead author of this important work “Precipitation legacies in desert-grassland primary production occur through previous-year tiller density” that clearly showed the existence of legacies from previous years and documented the mechanism behind them. Legacies in aboveground net primary production were similar in absolute…
New Rainfall Manipulation Paper
Congratulations Laureano on your new paper just published in Ecosphere!! This paper reports on a new system that alters precipitation for experimental plots from 80% reduction to 80% increase relative to ambient, is low cost, and is fully solar powered. This two-part system consists of a rainout shelter that intercepts water and sends it to a temporary storage tank, from…
NEW PAPER
A recent article “Water controls on nitrogen transformations and stocks in an arid ecosystem” led by Lara Reichmann (see Publications) and published in Ecosphere showed novel interactions between water availability and nitrogen cycling. Net nitrogen mineralization was insensitive to changes in water availability but plant uptake was not. Consequently, mineral nitrogen accumulated under dry conditions because the mineralization was not…
SARAS Workshop: “Abrupt grass-woodland transitions: Determinants and consequences for ecosystem services”
The South American Institute for Resilience and Sustainability Studies (SARAS) will gather scientists and artists in Punta del Este, Maldonado, Uruguay from December 16th to 19th, to synthesize our understanding of the determinants and consequences of abrupt grass-woodland transitions in different ecological systems. This is an interdiciplinary worshop involving economists, natural resource managers, ecologists, artists, and hydrologists.