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Interactions Among Geology, Biogeochemistry, and Ecological Biology - Past, Current, and Future

The physical and ecological landscapes of American drylands are especially vulnerable to change from short-term climatic variability (a few seasons to years) and land uses. Scientific understanding of past and ongoing change are needed to forecast future changes that will help managers, communities, and agencies decide how to manage land and resources. Poor understanding of the complex interactions among geologic and ecologic processes currently limit our ability to predict landscape response to climatic and human influences. In this task, we seek to understand these interactions by study of past records of environmental change and by monitoring change on landscapes having differing past and current land uses so that we can produce forecasts of future landscape and ecologic change. Emphasis is on linkages among geologic substrates and their origins; biogeochemical nutrient cycling; weathering of substrate; soil moisture and water infiltration; weather events and climate; past and current land uses; and land-management priorities.

Our research foci address urgent problems in managing American drylands. Work on understanding plant-community distribution emphasizes cheatgrass invasions, which create shifts in ecologic function, causes loss of wildlife habitat, native plant communities, and agricultural land and changes fire regime. Biogeochemical studies address issues of carbon storage and release in dryland soils and the feedbacks between arid-system geochemistry, hydrology, and ecology. A new effort examines the effects of fire on carbon, energy, and mass balance. Collectively these studies bridge the divides among geology, hydrology, and biology to develop an integrated understanding of ecosystems. Our intent is to provide forecasts of both the potential and ongoing impacts of ecological change to stakeholders in the communities and governments of American drylands.

For more information, select from the following topics:

• Interactions among soil fertility, grazing history, and climatic variability in semi-arid grasslands, southeastern Utah
• Soil hydrology and drought in arid ecosystems
• Plant and soil biogeochemistry
• Geologic development of arid landscapes in the Canyonlands area (Utah) - the last 50,000 years
• Data on ages, as well as physical and chemical properties, of soils and surficial deposits in and around Canyonlands National Park, Utah
• Geologic framework for ecosystem structure and function
• Land use effects on ecosystems
• Spatial patterns of exotic plant invasions - controls by parent-material geochemistry