Faculty Exploratory Research Grants

Influence of Climate and Increased Variability of Precipitation on Coupled Water, Nutrient and Carbon Dynamics and Losses

Kathleen Lohse, Assistant Professor, School of Natural Resources

Grant: $10,000

Global climate models project extreme droughts and increased inter-annual variability in rainfall for the next several decades. Despite these projections, researchers still have limited understanding of the feedbacks and interactions among coupled water, carbon and nitrogen cycles to predict ecosystem responses to climate change. In particular, it is unclear how increased variability in precipitation will alter coupled soil carbon and nitrogen cycles and losses and how these interactions will feedback on net primary productivity (NPP) and net ecosystem carbon balance (NECB). Understanding these feedbacks will be critical to predicting how ecosystems respond and acclimate to climate change.

Global climate models project extreme droughts and increased inter-annual variability in rainfall for the next several decades. Despite these projections, researchers still have limited understanding of the feedbacks and interactions among coupled water, carbon and nitrogen cycles to predict ecosystem responses to climate change. In particular, it is unclear how increased variability in precipitation will alter coupled soil carbon and nitrogen cycles and losses and how these interactions will feedback on net primary productivity (NPP) and net ecosystem carbon balance (NECB). Understanding these feedbacks will be critical to predicting how ecosystems respond and acclimate to climate change.

This project will explore how variability in precipitation (intensity, frequency, duration) influences soil carbon and nitrogen cycling and partitioning of loss pathways and how these processes feedback on productivity.

Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, Arizona Research Laboratories

The University of Arizona

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