Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Desert Southwest CESU

archived

The USGS is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for a collaborative research effort with USGS scientists to quantify the timing and environmental controls of conifer cambial activity, cambial damage by fire, and permanent archiving of tree-ring samples. The researchers will work with USGS FORT scientists and Bandelier National Monument staff to collect, prepare, and analyze tree-ring microcore samples from a long-term (25-year) tree-growth monitoring site at Bandelier, as well as permanently archive existing tree-ring fire scar samples in the only federally recognized repository for dendrochronology-based research specimens. Subject to available funds*, the researchers will analyze samples of experimentally fire-scarred trees to quantify the timing of cellular development in relation to cambial wounding by fire. This work will improve understanding of future tree and forest response to climate change, fire scar formation and utility to inform fire management, and make available the tree-ring samples for future analyses (e.g., meta-analyses).

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