Latest news and adventures from the lab…
July 2015: Flurin Babst from Arizona Tree Ring Lab. visiting for the summer – welcome to Bozeman!
July 2015: Jerad Hoy’s summer (2014) research featured in the IoE newsletter on his interactive tool to help understand US emission targets
June 2015: Katie and Kristen at the USGS North Central Science Center Open Science meeting
June 2015: Katie Renwick (PhD CSU) joins the lab to work on climate impacts of sagebrush systems
June 2015: Further confirmation and evidence for the importance of semi-arid systems in the global carbon cycle Ahlstrom et al. Science
May 2015: Leo off to JAMSTEC (Japan), Zhen at WSL (CH) and Nicolas at LSCE (France) for summer research
May 2015: Read an accompanying article in The Conversation discussing how changes in water-use efficiency and transpiration, published by David Frank, myself and others on May 11, 2015 in Nature Climate Change
My lab investigates the role of climate and humans on terrestrial ecosystems using vegetation models, remote sensing, forest inventory and physiological measurements. Land ecosystems play a critical role in the earth system by mitigating climate change, providing habitat for biodiversity, and resources, such as food, fiber and water for humans. In the Ecosystem Dynamics Lab we explore key questions related to interactions between vegetation, climate, and humans that directly impact a range of ecosystem services, such as:
- What are the mechanisms that determine the land carbon sink over time and from year-to-year?
- How does vegetation respond to, and recover from, disturbance, in particular, fire and reforestation?
- How will the combined effects of global change, including elevated CO2, climate change, and land-use change, alter the land surface in the 21st century?
We use a range of techniques to address these questions that focus around the application and development of dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs).
The lab is new at Montana State University since January 2014 and I am interested in recruiting a diverse group of researchers, from undergraduates to post-doctoral scientists, with an enthusiasm for exploring ecosystem science questions. Experience in biology, ecology, environmental science, physics, remote sensing and computer sciences is appreciated and/or a desire to learn new skills.
Please contact me at benjamin.poulter AT montana.edu if you have questions or are interested in joining my Ecosystem Dynamics Lab at MSU!