NSF Macrosystems
We were funded on an NSF macrosystems grant to use remote sensing techniques to scale to the entire southwest US the genetic level understanding of how cottonwood trees are impacted by climate change. We will use four cottonwood common gardens, leaf spectral data, NEON aircraft, and NASA satellites to address these questions.
We have funding for a PhD student and a postdoc in collaboration with Dr. Greg Asner at ASU to work together on the remote sensing side of this project.
Overall approach to investigating adaptive survival strategies in Fremont cottonwood as responses to climate change and exotic species invasion. A. Climate change and tamarisk invasion synergistically impact riparian ecosystems. B. Three adaptive strategies that are subject to climate change and invasive species as selective agents will be evaluated in the context of phenotypic plasticity along an environmental stress gradient. C. Remote sensing and experimental common gardens will be used as investigative tools. D. Integrated results from the project will provide information on survival traits that can be scaled as predictive outcomes for informed adaptive management of riparian ecosystems