How does variability in climate, lithology and disturbance influence CZ structure and function over long (e.g., landscape evolution) and short (e.g., hydrologic event) time scales?
Urban population growth throughout the southwestern US is sustained largely by water supplies that derive from upland catchments in nearby montane landscapes. Southwestern mountain belts in Southern Arizona, for example, which vary widely in lithology, are sometimes termed "Sky Islands" because their higher elevations receive more annual precipitation, support greater vegetation biomass and have higher rates of net primary production than the surrounding "sea" of desert semi-arid to arid landscape. Ecosystems and soil development at high elevations in the Southwest also support domestic forestry, range and recreation industries. Global climate models predict progressive warming and drying of the U.S. Southwest overall, and this is expected to affect the composition and health of ecosystems across the elevation range, e.g., through stress-induced disturbances such as insect outbreaks and wildfire.
Southwestern mountain systems are nonetheless expected to continue to serve as the water supply conduit to growing basin cities, in addition to supporting forestry, range and recreational activities. The need to understand their capacity to do so in the context of changing climate motivates Catalina-Jemez CZO research. The quantity and quality of water in upland catchments and receiving metropolitan areas depend on the processes that partition and transform it during its reactive transport through the CZ. However, the present-day hydrologic, geomorphic and (bio)geochemical behavior of the CZ depends, in turn, on its structure, which has evolved over geological time scales in response to long-term climatic and tectonic forcing. Therefore, a basic understanding of contemporary CZ behavior requires developing a conceptual model of how it has evolved to its current state, and how it will continue to evolve into the future. Such evolution includes the formation of hydrologic flow paths, the (bio)geochemical differentiation of the weathering profile, and the production and erosion of soil-mantled hillslopes. Our research involves field and laboratory based measurements in addition to computational modeling designed to understand how these processes are coupled over hydrologic event and landscape evolution time scales.
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27 Oct 2020 - They’re beneath our feet, but we seldom hear important signals in the soils
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17 Jun 2020 - For an updated listing of these talks, including abstracts, see /national/education-outreach/sustainability-2020/ The U.S....
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19 Nov 2019 - A list of CZ-related sessions, abstracts and events at the 2019 AGU Fall Meeting.
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08 Jul 2019 - CZO will end Nov 2020, succeeded by the “CZ Collaborative Network”. Let’s explore how the CZ community can build upon the CZOs via new NSF proposals.
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19 Nov 2018 - The 2018 AGU Fall Meeting will be held December 10-14 in Washington, D.C.
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10 May 2018 - The Discoveries section of the National Science Foundation's website on Critical Zone Observatories (CZOs).
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14 Aug 2017 - Researchers find that carbon starvation and hydraulic failure kill drought-stricken trees.
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03 Jul 2017 - Ravindra Dwivedi received the prestigious 2017 AGU Horton Research Grant to support his CZO work in the Santa Catalina Mountains.
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19 Apr 2016 - Researchers from the UA Santa Catalina Mountains & Jemez River Basin Critical Zone Observatory did before-and-after studies of how severe...
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10 Mar 2016 - EOS article written by Lily Strelich features research conducted by CZO investigators and their colleagues, which shows that bark beetle epidemics...
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03 Mar 2016 - The 2016 MG Anderson Award for Outstanding Paper in Hydrological Processes, Wiley is presented to Jemez-Catalina CZO investigators.
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22 Jan 2016 - Assessment of ecosystem services can be improved by including broader spatial and temporal scales of geosciences perspectives.
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28 Aug 2015 - David Breshears was interviewed by Sara Hammond about forest vulnerability to growing risks of drought and heat-induced die-off. Read and listen...
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16 Jul 2015 - Jon Chorover of the Santa Catalina Mountains & Jemez River Basin CZO has been invited to talk at the Hydro-Biogeochemical Processes: Mechanisms,...
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08 Jun 2015 - Join Rebecca on an exciting GoPro adventure to study soil in the desert, grasslands, and pine forests of Arizona.
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19 Mar 2015 - Get a sense of the people and the work. Several members of the Catalina-Jemez CZO are profiled here, including students and professors.
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10 Feb 2015 - Critical Zone Services: Expanding Context, Constraints, and Currency beyond Ecosystem Services
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08 Dec 2014 - Jon Pelletier and his graduate student Caitlin Orem's research on the post Las Conchas fire erosion was highlighed in the Arizona Daily Star...
01 Jan 2018 - New Opportunities for Critical Zone Science Following the June 2017 Arlington Meeting for Critical Zone Science (hosted by CZO), a white booklet...
05 Dec 2017 - Information on CZO award recipients, events, presentations, etc. at the 2017 AGU Fall Meeting.
30 Oct 2017 - Water Resources Research published a new special collection in September 2017 featuring concentration-discharge research from multiple CZOs.
21 Apr 2017 - AGU has published a collection of commentaries highlighting the important role Earth and space science research plays in society.
06 Apr 2017 - 2017 CZO Webinar Series: Critical Zone and Society.
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Increasing plant water stress and decreasing summer streamflow in response to a warmer and wetter climate in seasonally snow‐covered forests. Christensen L., Adams HR, Tai X, Barnard HR, Brooks PD (2020): Ecohydrology e2256 (online) Cross-CZO
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Montane forest productivity across a semiarid climatic gradient. Knowles J.F., Scott R.L., Biederman J.A., Blanken P.D., Burns S.P., Dore S., Kolb T.E., Litvak M.E., Barron‐Gafford G.A. (2020): Global Change Biology (online)
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Topography influences species-specific patterns of seasonal primary productivity in a semiarid montane forest. Murphy P.C., Knowles J.F., Moore D.J.P., Anchukaitis K., Potts D.L., Barron-Gafford G.A. (2020): Tree Physiology 40(10): 1343–1354
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Depth and topographic controls on microbial activity in a recently burned sub-alpine catchment. Fairbanks D., Shepard C., Murphy M., Rasmussen C., Chorover J., Rich V., Gallery R. (2020): Soil Biology and Biochemistry 148: 107844
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Ecosystem carbon and water cycling from a sky island montane forest. Knowles J.F., Scott R.L., Minor R.L., Barron-Gafford G.A. (2020): Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 281: 107835
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Ubiquitous Fractal Scaling and Filtering Behavior of Hydrologic Fluxes and Storages from A Mountain Headwater Catchment. Dwivedi R., Knowles J.F., Eastoe C., Minor R., Abramson N., Mitra B., Wright W.E., McIntosh J., Meixner T., Ferre P.A.T., Castro C., Niu G.-Y., Barron-Gafford G.A., Stanley M., and Chorover J. (2020): Water 12(2): 613
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Critical Zone Biogeochemistry. Moravec, B. and Chorover, J. (2020): In Biogeochemical Cycles (eds K. Dontsova, Z. Balogh‐Brunstad and G. Le Roux)
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Where is the bottom of a watershed?. Condon L.E., Markovich K.H., Kelleher C.A., McDonnell J.J., Ferguson G., and McIntosh J.C. (2020): Water Resources Research 56(3): e2019WR026010
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Vegetation source water identification using isotopic and hydrometric observations from a subhumid mountain catchment. Dwivedi R., Eastoe C., Knowles J.F., Wright W.E., Hamann L., Minor R., Mitra B., Meixner T., McIntosh J., Ferre P.A.T., Castro C., Niu G.-Y., Barron‐Gafford G.A., Abramson N., Papuga S.A., Stanley M., Hu J., Chorover J. (2020): Ecohydrology 13(1): e2167
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Resolving Deep Critical Zone Architecture in Complex Volcanic Terrain. Moravec B.G., White A.M., Root R.A, Sanchez A., Olshansky Y., Paras B.K., Carr B., McIntosh J., Pelletier J.D., Rasmussen C., Holbrook W.S., Chorover J. (2020): Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface 125(1): e2019JF005189 Cross-CZO
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Critical Zone Science in the Anthropocene: Opportunities for biogeographic and ecological theory and praxis to drive earth science integration. Minor J., Pearl J.K., Barnes M.L., Colella T.R., Murphy P.C., Mann S., Barron-Gafford G.A. (2020): Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment 44(1): 50–69
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Ecological and genomic attributes of novel bacterial taxa that thrive in subsurface soil horizons. Brewer, Tess E., Emma L. Aronson, Keshav Arogyaswamy, Sharon A. Billings, Jon K. Botthoff, Ashley N. Campbell, Nicholas C. Dove, Dawson Fairbanks, Rachel E. Gallery, Stephen C. Hart, Jason Kaye, Gary King, Geoffrey Logan, Kathleen A. Lohse, Mia R. Maltz, Emilio Mayorga, Caitlin O’Neill, Sarah M. Owens, Aaron Packman, Jennifer Pett-Ridge, Alain F. Plante, Daniel D. Richter, Whendee L. Silver, Wendy H. Yang, Noah Fierer (2019): mBio Oct 2019, 10 (5) e01318-19 Cross-CZO National
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Prevalence and magnitude of groundwater use by vegetation: a global stable isotope meta-analysis. Jaivime Evaristo and Jeffrey J. McDonnell (2017): Scientific Reports 7 Cross-CZO National
Targeting Extreme Events: Complementing Near-Term Ecological Forecasting With Rapid Experiments and Regional Surveys. Redmond M.D., Law D.J., Field J.P., Meneses N., Carroll C.J.W., Wion A.P., Breshears D.D., Cobb N.S., Dietze M.C. and Gallery R.E. (2019): Frontiers in Environmental Science 7: 183
Mountain‐Block Recharge: A Review of Current Understanding. Markovich K.H, Manning A.H., Condon L.E., McIntosh J.C. (2019): Water Resources Research 55(11): 8278-8304
Allometric relationships for Quercus gambelii and Robinia neomexicana for biomass estimation following disturbance. Krofcheck D.J., Litvak M.E., Hurteau M.D. (2019): Ecosphere 10(10): e02905
Distinct stores and the routing of water in the deep critical zone of a snow-dominated volcanic catchment. White A., Moravec B., McIntosh J., Olshansky Y., Paras B., Sanchez R.A., Ferré T.P.A., Meixner T., and Chorover J. (2019): Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 23(11): 4661-4683
Soil Fluid Biogeochemical Response to Climatic Events. Olshansky Y., Knowles J.F., Barron‐Gafford G.A., Rasmussen C., Abramson N., Chorover J. (2019): Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 124(9): 2866-2882
Ecosystem-bedrock interaction changes nutrient compartmentalization during early oxidative weathering. Zaharescu D.G., Burghelea C.I., Dontsova K., Presler J.K., Hunt E.A., Domanik K.J., Amistadi M.K., Sandhaus S., Munoz E.N., Gaddis E.E., Galey M., Vaquera-Ibarra M.O., Palacios-Menendez M.A., Castrejón-Martinez R., Roldán-Nicolau E.C., Li K., Maier R.M., Reinhard C.T., Chorover J. (2019): Scientific Reports 9: 15006
A correlative bimodal surface imaging method to assess hyphae-rock interactions. Qafoku, Odeta, Rebecca A. Lybrand, Vaithiyalingam Shutthanandan, Rachel E. Gallery, Jason C. Austin, Paul A. Schroeder, Jennifer Fedenko, Erin Rooney, and Dragos G. Zaharescu (2019): Microscopy and Microanalysis, 25(S2), 2436-2437 Cross-CZO