Month: October 2024

This week for the ever-popular Ecoinformatics Seminar Series, we had an in-person visit from Dr. Renée Brown from the University of New Mexico’s Department of Biology. Renée is also involved with the National Science Foundation’s McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-Term Ecological Research Program. Renée’s talk gave an overview of her research on the effects of global change on dryland ecosystems ranging from the Chihuahuan Desert to Antarctica (which is, in fact, the world’s largest desert). She also discussed her career trajectory and provided insights into the importance of sensor networks for studying ecological processes across spatial and temporal scales.

Aside from her seminar talk, many folks in the lab and across ECOSS met with Renée over the course of her visit to chat about science and life. Her visit concluded with a lively happy hour on Monday evening, and a snowy stroll through the aspens before she headed home on Tuesday afternoon. Thank you, Renée, for the wonderful visit!

Darby, Oscar, and Mostafa led two well-attended PhenoCam training workshops as part of the AmeriFlux Management Project webinar series, engaging over 50 participants. In the first session, held on October 11, Oscar and Mostafa provided an introduction to the PhenoCam Network and guided participants on how to navigate the PhenoCam website. The second session, on October 18, featured Darby leading an interactive data activity on a cloud platform, demonstrating how to integrate PhenoCam data with eddy covariance flux tower data. The resources from both sessions are available here. Also, the recordings are available here: Part 1 and Part 2.

After the workshop, Darby reported: “This was the best turnout we’ve had yet for a training sessions, and we had a lot of great questions from the audience, particularly about how researchers can apply these tools to data from their own sites.”

Mostafa’s paper, “Scaling Individual Tree Transpiration With Thermal Cameras Reveals Interspecies Differences to Drought Vulnerability,” was published this week in the AGU journal, Geophysical Research Letters (GRL). Using canopy temperature data from thermal cameras, Mostafa estimated the transpiration rates of individual trees at Harvard Forest and Niwot Ridge with the PT-JPL model. Tree-level analysis revealed species-specific responses to drought, with lodgepole pine exhibiting greater tolerance than Engelmann spruce at Niwot and red oak showing greater tolerance than red maple at Harvard. These findings show how ecophysiological differences between species result in varying responses to drought and demonstrate that these responses can be characterized by deriving transpiration from crown temperature measurements.

Great work, Mostafa!

The Annual AISES (American Indian Science and Engineering Society) National Conference is a unique, three-day event focusing on educational, professional, and workforce development for Indigenous peoples of North America and the Pacific Islands in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) studies and careers.  Kai and other members of NAU’s AISES chapter recently traveled to San Antonio for the 2024 conference. Kai presented a poster on how the lab is using PhenoCams to track responses to precipitation manipulation treatments at the SEV MVE (Mean X Variance Experiment). After the conference, Kai reported that “it was a great experience and I’m happy to have made new connections in academia!”

Congratulations, Kai!