Climate controls on forest biomass, productivity, and species distribution along the western Sierra Nevada gradient

Anne E. Kelly, UC Irvine, Dept. of Earth System Science, a.kelly@uci.edu (Presenter)
Michael Goulden, UC Irvine, mgoulden@uci.edu

Recent large-scale forest die-offs in the western United States demonstrate the need to under-stand the mechanistic interactions between climate variability, climate change, and ecosystem

function. Previous research has shown rapid and widespread mortality associated with recent climate trends [Breshears et al., 2005; Kelly and Goulden, 2008; van Mantgem et al., 2009]. These findings raise the questions of the mechanisms of forest mortality and how future climate change will affect ecosystem properties including carbon storage and turnover and water balance. My research focuses on interactions between climate and ecosystem function on hectare-

sized plots across a broad climate and vegetation gradient in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There is a critical need for research that links small-scale physiological and climate measurements to regional-scale remote sensing. I will use multiwavelength imagers (Landsat and MODIS) as well as NASA LVIS and NSF NCALM LiDAR to extract relationships between ecosystem productivity and ecosystem structure and compare these to plot-level measurements. My ultimate goal is to help researchers to rapidly identify and attribute the impact of climate change on Western ecosystems.

Presentation Type:  Poster

Session:  Coupled Processes at Land-Atmosphere-Ocean Interfaces   (Mon 4:00 PM)

Associated Project(s): 

• Goulden, Michael: Climate controls on forest biomass, productivity, and species distribution along the western Sierra Nevada gradient ...details

Poster Location ID: 46