Our primary research focus is investigating how the exchange of carbon, water and energy between the land  surface and the atmosphere varies across ecological gradients in the Southwestern US. We use a tower-based micrometeorological technique called eddy covariance to directly measure these whole ecosystem fluxes. To interpret the fluxes measured by the tower, my lab also  uses a variety of smaller scale approaches to quantify the  contributions of individual ecosystem components (e.g. herbaceous plants, woody plants, soils, foliage, wood).  We  combine these data sources to develop a mechanistic understanding of the factors that  control ecosystem processes such as carbon storage, water cycling and energy balance in semi-arid biomes across elevation and disturbance gradients.

 The current research in my lab contributes to our ability to answer the following questions:    

1) How do ecosystems processes vary across biomes in the Southwestern US?  Which biomes are the largest carbon sinks and why?

2) What are the consequences of drought-driven mortality in pinyon-juniper (PJ) woodlands for carbon, water and energy dynamics?

3) What are the unique roles that pinyon vs juniper play in PJ woodlands, and how does mortality of one vs the other alter the trajectory of recovery in these biomes? 

4)  What are the drivers and consequences of dryland biome transitions in the Southwest US ?