by David Lipson | Jan 12, 2019 | Agriculture, Research, SMER
The wine grape leaves at the SMER Experimental Vineyard appear to harbor a diverse fungal community. Leaf-associated (phyllosphere) microbial communities can protect plants from diseases and stress. Do different grape varieties harbor different leaf microbial...
by David Lipson | Jan 12, 2019 | Agriculture, Global Change, Plant Ecology, Research, SMER
In 2018, an experimental vineyard was established at SMER. The vineyard is currently supporting the doctoral research of Molly Clemens, who studies the responses of different wine grape varieties to climate variability and elevated CO2. The vineyard is currently...
by David Lipson | Jan 12, 2019 | Fire, Global Change, Research, Sky Oaks
Semiarid ecosystems represent a large fraction of the Earth’s surface, and have a strong influence on interannual variability in the global C cycle, despite having relatively low productivity. SDSU Doctoral student, Andrea Fenner, is performing her dissertation...
by David Lipson | Jan 12, 2019 | Fire, Global Change, Plant Ecology, Research, Sky Oaks
SDSU’s Sky Oaks Field Station (SOFS) recently hosted a visit from the DRIVING-C team, who are using drone photogrammetry to measure aboveground biomass in the chaparral vegetation. Drylands play a major role in the global carbon cycle, as these areas are believed to...
by David Lipson | Jan 12, 2019 | Global Change, Plant Ecology, Research, SMER, Soils
Coastal sage scrub (CSS) is a semi-arid shrub-dominated ecosystem found in southern California. CSS has been reduced to a tiny fraction of its original extent due to urbanization, conversion to agriculture and degradation by invasive exotic annual plant species. The...
by David Lipson | Jan 12, 2019 | Global Change, Plant Ecology, Research, SMER, Soils
We recently completed an NSF-funded rainfall manipulation experiment at Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve. The experiment is investigation the interactive effects of plant functional type (native shrubs vs. exotic annual species) and altered rainfall. This is a...
