2018 ESA Annual Meeting (August 5 -- 10)

INS 18 - Under-Preparation or Overreaction: The Science and Management of Extreme Events in Dryland Ecosystems

Wednesday, August 8, 2018: 1:30 PM-3:00 PM
244, New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center
Organizer:
Scott Ferrenberg
Co-organizers:
Akasha Faist and Kristina E. Young
Moderator:
Scott Ferrenberg
Drylands cover 41% of the world’s total land area, are home to roughly 38% of the human population, serve as important agricultural systems, and play key roles in determining interannual variation in atmospheric CO2 concentration and the size of terrestrial C sinks. These socioeconomically and ecologically important ecosystems have long been renown for their tempestuous weather and interannual climate variation. Models indicate these systems will experience more extreme weather and climate events with continued rapid warming. Yet, many organisms common to drylands are adapted to severe water limitations and high temperatures. This raises the question “what is an extreme event in drylands and which types of these events are most likely to impact ecosystem structure and functioning“. Evidence suggests that the responses of dryland ecosystems to climate change will vary in relation to the direct and interactive influences of vegetation community structure, edaphic properties, and current and historical land-use patterns--factors that can vary dramatically within and among dryland systems. How these factors will influence responses to extremes, however, is not well studied and there is a pressing need for approaches to quantify “extremes” within a consistent framework across drylands and for research examining how extreme events interact with biotic and abiotic landscape features to affect ecosystem structure and function at spatiotemporal scales relevant to science and land management. In this session, experts in drylands and from a wide range of disciplines will explore methods for characterizing extreme events and for their management across different drylands.
Browner or greener, crowded or empty: Biological and social extremes in desert communities
Daniel E. Winkler, U.S. Geological Survey; Emily Brooks, University of California, Irvine
As the pendulum swings: Spatial and temporal variations in grass recovery to rainfall fluctuations
Dawn Browning, USDA - Agricultural Research Service; Jonathan J. Maynard, USDA Agricultural Research Service
Cancelled
INS 18-5
Extreme events in drylands: We’re skewed (widthdrawn)
Scott Collins, University of New Mexico
A tale of two thresholds: Mistakes and serendipity in a desert grassland
Brandon T. Bestelmeyer, Jornada Experimental Range, USDA Agricultural Research Service; Debra Peters, USDA Agricultural Research Service; Jeffrey E. Herrick, USDA-ARS Jornada Experimental Range
Cancelled
INS 18-8
Citizen science tools for predicting landscape-scale variability in drought resilience (widthdrawn)
Jeffrey E. Herrick, USDA-ARS Jornada Experimental Range; Shawn W. Salley, USDA-ARS; Amy Quandt, NMSU; Won Seok Jang, University of Colorado; Jason C. Neff, University of Colorado; Brandon T. Bestelmeyer, Jornada Experimental Range, USDA Agricultural Research Service
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