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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

The Impact Of Climate And Elevation On The Growth And Mortality Of Piñon Pine, Alice M. Fretz Jul 2017

The Impact Of Climate And Elevation On The Growth And Mortality Of Piñon Pine, Alice M. Fretz

Biology ETDs

The Southwestern United States is currently experiencing severe drought, resulting in the mortality of many tree species. Piñon-juniper woodlands are an extensive biome in the Southwest, and are highly vulnerable to extended periods of drought that lead to tree mortality. Specifically, Pinus edulis populations are decreasing due to increasingly arid conditions. I used dendrochronology to investigate how tree growth rings of Pinus edulis reflect severe drought in living and dead trees. I also investigated how severe drought affects Pinus edulis along an altitudinal gradient. Tree core samples were taken from currently living and dead trees, as well as from trees …


Exploring Historical Coffee And Climate Relations In Southern Guatemala: An Integration Of Tree Ring Analysis And Remote Sensing Data, Diego Pons Jan 2017

Exploring Historical Coffee And Climate Relations In Southern Guatemala: An Integration Of Tree Ring Analysis And Remote Sensing Data, Diego Pons

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation makes use of a physical geography perspective to examine the relationship between agriculture and climate in Guatemala using dendrochronology. I examined the potential of high-resolution climate proxy data from dendrochronology to help fill in the gaps of past climate information to better understand the natural and anthropogenic variability of precipitation which, in turn, can inform Guatemala’s agriculture sector. This research has demonstrated successful cross-dating and climate sensitivity of Abies guatemalensis in the Pacific slope of Guatemala. Based on this, I have produced a 124-year record of mean precipitation from June-July-August. The mean precipitation from June-July-August at this site …


Drought Sensitivity Of Slash Pine And Longleaf Pine Deduced By Tree Ring Analysis, Conor Madison Jan 2014

Drought Sensitivity Of Slash Pine And Longleaf Pine Deduced By Tree Ring Analysis, Conor Madison

Honors Theses and Capstones

Annual tree rings give us the opportunity to investigate the adaptation of trees to climate and environmental changes over a long period of time. In particular, the physical characteristics of each ring (width and earlywood and late wood differentiation) can be used to reconstruct past environment conditions. Physiological responses of trees will be evaluated for two conifers species, i.e. Longleaf pine and Slash pine, giving the opportunity to compare the two species and understand how each species (Longleaf pine and Slash pine) adapt their water use to thrive in such extreme environments. Growth data will then be related to the …


Assessing Growth Response To Climate Controls In A Great Basin Artemisia Tridentata Plant Community, Lorenzo F. Apodaca Dec 2013

Assessing Growth Response To Climate Controls In A Great Basin Artemisia Tridentata Plant Community, Lorenzo F. Apodaca

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

An assessment of the growth response of key vegetative species to climatic variability is vital to identifying possible local impacts on ecosystems faced with imminent climate change. With current climate projections in Nevada predicting a shift to an even more arid climate with greater year-to-year variability, the imperative exists to identify the effects of specific climatic controls on plant growth and to research methods to assess large-scale vegetative changes, especially in more remote areas where readily available data sets may be lacking. This study utilized annual growth ring indices constructed from big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentatassp.tridentata) stems collected in Spring Valley, …