by David Lipson | Jan 12, 2019 | Conservation, MTRP, Research, SMER, Soils
For her M.S. of Ecology, Sharon Reeves did her thesis research on the use of cyanobacteria and algae cultured from biological soil crusts (BSC’s) for restoring disturbed soils. BSC’s naturally occur on the surface of soils in arid and semiarid...
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...
by David Lipson | Jan 12, 2019 | Global Change, Research, Sky Oaks, Soils
In collaboration with the Global Change Research Group (GCRG) and Cheryl Kuske at LANL, we studied the effects of free air CO2 enrichment (FACE) on soil fungal communities in a chaparral ecosystem. We found that elevated CO2 increased root production, which led to an...
