Field Stations Program Blog
Stay informed on the latest events at the Field Stations!
Experimental Vineyard at 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...
Long-term changes in Net Ecosystem Exchange of CO2 in Chaparral
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...
Measuring Biomass in Chaparral Ecosystems: a visit by DRIVING-C from the University of Exeter
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...
Altered C cycling under exotic annual plant species in a coastal sage scrub ecosystem
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...
Rainfall Manipulation Experiment at SMER
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...
Elevated CO2 stimulates soil fungal diversity through increased fine root production
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...