Restoration treatments enhance tree growth and alter climatic constraints during extreme drought.

The frequency and severity of drought events are predicted to increase due to anthropogenic climate change, with cascading effects across forested ecosystems. Management activities such as forest thinning and prescribed burning, which are often intended to mitigate fire hazard and restore ecosystem processes, may also help promote tree resistance to drought. However, it is unclear whether these treatments remain effective during the most severe drought conditions or whether their impacts differ across environmental gradients.

Differences in heat tolerance, water use efficiency and growth among Douglas-fir families and varieties evidenced by GWAS and common garden studies.

Severe and frequent heat and drought events challenge the survival and development of long-generation trees. In this study, we investigated the genomic basis of heat tolerance, water use efficiency and growth by performing genome-wide association studies in coastal Douglas-fir () and intervarietal ( × ) hybrid seedlings. GWAS results identified 32 candidate genes involved in primary and secondary metabolism, abiotic stress and signaling, among other functions.

Detecting patterns of post-fire pine regeneration in a Madrean Sky Island with field surveys and remote sensing.

The American Southwest is experiencing drastic increases in aridity and wildfire incidence, triggering conversion of some frequent surface forests to non-forest. Extensive research has focused on these dynamics in regional ponderosa pine forests, but we know much less about Madrean pine-oak forests, which are broadly distributed from the Sierra Madre in Mexico to the Sky Island mountain ranges in the U.S.

Forest restoration treatments increased growth and did not change survival of ponderosa pines in severe drought, Arizona.

We report on survival and growth of ponderosa pines (Pinus ponderosa Douglas ex P. Lawson & C. Lawson) 2 decades after forest restoration treatments in the G.

Combined drought and bark beetle attacks deplete non-structural carbohydrates and promote death of mature pine trees.

How carbohydrate reserves in conifers respond to drought and bark beetle attacks are poorly understood. We investigated changes in carbohydrate reserves and carbon-dependent diterpene defences in ponderosa pine trees that were experimentally subjected to two levels of drought stress (via root trenching) and two types of biotic challenge treatments (pheromone-induced bark beetle attacks or inoculations with crushed beetles that include beetle-associated fungi) for two consecutive years. Our results showed that trenching did not influence carbohydrates, whereas both biotic challenges reduced amounts of starch and sugars of trees.

Plant developmental stage influences responses of seedlings to experimental warming.

Seedling emergence, survival, morphological and physiological traits, and oxidative stress resistance of southwestern white pine ( Engelm.) were studied in response to warming treatments applied during embryogenesis, germination, and early seedling growth. Daytime air temperature surrounding cones in tree canopies was warmed by +2.

Phase behavior and surface tension of soft active Brownian particles.

We study quasi two-dimensional, monodisperse systems of active Brownian particles (ABPs) for a range of activities, stiffnesses, and densities. We develop a microscopic, analytical method for predicting the dense phase structure formed after motility-induced phase separation (MIPS) has occurred, including the dense cluster's area fraction, interparticle pressure, and radius. Our predictions are in good agreement with our Brownian dynamics simulations.

Montane forest productivity across a semiarid climatic gradient.

High-elevation montane forests are disproportionately important to carbon sequestration in semiarid climates where low elevations are dry and characterized by low carbon density ecosystems. However, these ecosystems are increasingly threatened by climate change with seasonal implications for photosynthesis and forest growth. As a result, we leveraged eddy covariance data from six evergreen conifer forest sites in the semiarid western United States to extrapolate the status of carbon sequestration within a framework of projected warming and drying.

Active binary mixtures of fast and slow hard spheres.

We computationally studied the phase behavior and dynamics of binary mixtures of active particles, where each species had distinct activities leading to distinct velocities, fast and slow. We obtained phase diagrams demonstrating motility-induced phase separation (MIPS) upon varying the activity and concentration of each species, and extended current kinetic theory of active/passive mixtures to active/active mixtures. We discovered two regimes of behavior quantified through the participation of each species in the dense phase compared to their monodisperse counterparts.

Drought-Mediated Changes in Tree Physiological Processes Weaken Tree Defenses to Bark Beetle Attack.

Interactions between water stress and induced defenses and their role in tree mortality due to bark beetles are poorly understood. We performed a factorial experiment on 48 mature ponderosa pines (Pinus ponderosa) in northern Arizona over three years that manipulated a) tree water stress by cutting roots and removing snow; b) bark beetle attacks by using pheromone lures; and c) phloem exposure to biota vectored by bark beetles by inoculating with dead beetles. Tree responses included resin flow from stem wounds, phloem composition of mono- and sesqui-terpenes, xylem water potential, leaf gas exchange, and survival.

Disentangling the role of photosynthesis and stomatal conductance on rising forest water-use efficiency.

Multiple lines of evidence suggest that plant water-use efficiency (WUE)-the ratio of carbon assimilation to water loss-has increased in recent decades. Although rising atmospheric CO has been proposed as the principal cause, the underlying physiological mechanisms are still being debated, and implications for the global water cycle remain uncertain. Here, we addressed this gap using 30-y tree ring records of carbon and oxygen isotope measurements and basal area increment from 12 species in 8 North American mature temperate forests.

Scale-Up of Innovative Honeycomb Reactors for Power-to-Gas Applications - The Project Store&Go.

The German "Energiewende" is heavily based on electric power and, therefore, requests solutions to serve non-electric energy uses and to store electric energy in large scale. Synthetic natural gas (SNG) produced with hydrogen from water electrolysis and with CO from mainly renewable sources is one approach. For the catalytic SNG production efficient removal and utilization of the reaction heat is the main issue.

Woody plants optimise stomatal behaviour relative to hydraulic risk.

Stomatal response to environmental conditions forms the backbone of all ecosystem and carbon cycle models, but is largely based on empirical relationships. Evolutionary theories of stomatal behaviour are critical for guarding against prediction errors of empirical models under future climates. Longstanding theory holds that stomata maximise fitness by acting to maintain constant marginal water use efficiency over a given time horizon, but a recent evolutionary theory proposes that stomata instead maximise carbon gain minus carbon costs/risk of hydraulic damage.

A multi-species synthesis of physiological mechanisms in drought-induced tree mortality.

Widespread tree mortality associated with drought has been observed on all forested continents and global change is expected to exacerbate vegetation vulnerability. Forest mortality has implications for future biosphere-atmosphere interactions of carbon, water and energy balance, and is poorly represented in dynamic vegetation models. Reducing uncertainty requires improved mortality projections founded on robust physiological processes.

Plant water potential improves prediction of empirical stomatal models.

Climate change is expected to lead to increases in drought frequency and severity, with deleterious effects on many ecosystems. Stomatal responses to changing environmental conditions form the backbone of all ecosystem models, but are based on empirical relationships and are not well-tested during drought conditions. Here, we use a dataset of 34 woody plant species spanning global forest biomes to examine the effect of leaf water potential on stomatal conductance and test the predictive accuracy of three major stomatal models and a recently proposed model.

Variation in species-level plant functional traits over wetland indicator status categories.

Wetland indicator status (WIS) describes the habitat affinity of plant species and is used in wetland delineations and resource inventories. Understanding how species-level functional traits vary across WIS categories may improve designations, elucidate mechanisms of adaptation, and explain habitat optima and niche. We investigated differences in species-level traits of riparian flora across WIS categories, extending their application to indicate hydrologic habitat.

CO exchange and evapotranspiration across dryland ecosystems of southwestern North America.

Global-scale studies suggest that dryland ecosystems dominate an increasing trend in the magnitude and interannual variability of the land CO sink. However, such analyses are poorly constrained by measured CO exchange in drylands. Here we address this observation gap with eddy covariance data from 25 sites in the water-limited Southwest region of North America with observed ranges in annual precipitation of 100-1000 mm, annual temperatures of 2-25°C, and records of 3-10 years (150 site-years in total).

Influence of pressures up to 50bar on two-stage anaerobic digestion.

The concept of pressurized two-stage anaerobic digestion integrates biogas production, purification and pressure boosting within one process. The produced methane-rich biogas can be fed into gas grids with considerably less purification effort. To investigate biogas production under high pressures up to 50bar, a lab scale two-stage anaerobic digestion system was constructed including one continuously operated pressurized methane reactor.

Genetic variation in Pinus strobiformis growth and drought tolerance from southwestern US populations.

The persistence of some tree species is threatened by combinations of novel abiotic and biotic stressors. To examine the hypothesis that Pinus strobiformis Engelm., a tree threatened by an invasive forest pathogen and a changing climate, exhibits intraspecific genetic variation in adaptive traits, we conducted a common garden study of seedlings at one location with two watering regimes using 24 populations.

Terrestrial carbon balance in a drier world: the effects of water availability in southwestern North America.

Global modeling efforts indicate semiarid regions dominate the increasing trend and interannual variation of net CO2 exchange with the atmosphere, mainly driven by water availability. Many semiarid regions are expected to undergo climatic drying, but the impacts on net CO2 exchange are poorly understood due to limited semiarid flux observations. Here we evaluated 121 site-years of annual eddy covariance measurements of net and gross CO2 exchange (photosynthesis and respiration), precipitation, and evapotranspiration (ET) in 21 semiarid North American ecosystems with an observed range of 100 - 1000 mm in annual precipitation and records of 4-9 years each.

Mechanisms of piñon pine mortality after severe drought: a retrospective study of mature trees.

Conifers have incurred high mortality during recent global-change-type drought(s) in the western USA. Mechanisms of drought-related tree mortality need to be resolved to support predictions of the impacts of future increases in aridity on vegetation. Hydraulic failure, carbon starvation and lethal biotic agents are three potentially interrelated mechanisms of tree mortality during drought.

How is water-use efficiency of terrestrial ecosystems distributed and changing on Earth?

A better understanding of ecosystem water-use efficiency (WUE) will help us improve ecosystem management for mitigation as well as adaption to global hydrological change. Here, long-term flux tower observations of productivity and evapotranspiration allow us to detect a consistent latitudinal trend in WUE, rising from the subtropics to the northern high-latitudes. The trend peaks at approximately 51°N, and then declines toward higher latitudes.

Toward full economic valuation of forest fuels-reduction treatments.

Our goal was to move toward full economic valuation of fuels-reduction treatments applied to ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests. For each of five fuels-reduction projects in northern Arizona, we calculated the economic value of carbon storage and carbon releases over one century produced by two fuels-reduction treatments of thinning following by prescribed burning every one (Rx10) or two (Rx20) decades and for no treatment followed by intense wildfire once in the first 50 years (HF50) or once in the first 100 years (HF100). Our estimates include two uses of harvested wood, the current use as pallets, and multiproduct use as paper, pallets, and construction materials.