We welcome Laura Yahdjian to the Sala Lab. Laura is a visiting professor from the University of Buenos Aires who works in grassland ecosystems. She has carried out important work on water controls on decomposition and nitrogen cycling in arid ecosystems. She is currently interested on the effects of land use on greenhouse-gas emissions. During her stay at ASU, Laura…
Category: Archive
Newly published nitrogen study
A new paper has come out from the Sala Lab in Oecologia. The paper entitled “Preference for different inorganic nitrogen forms among plant functional types and species of the Patagonian steppe” shows that shrubs and grasses absorb preferentially different forms of inorganic nitrogen. Grasses which have fibrous and shallow roots absorb inorganic N mainly as ammonium, which is the main…
Welcome
We welcome Josh Haussler to the Sala Lab. Josh recently has been accepted as a graduate student at ASU in the Environmental Life Sciences program. He has been part of the lab for several years and for several campaigns in the Chihuahuan Desert. We are looking forward to sharing with him many more fun times in the coming years.
New Paper
A new paper from the Sala Lab published today in Ecology (see Publications)! Lara Reichmann is the lead author of this important work “Precipitation legacies in desert-grassland primary production occur through previous-year tiller density” that clearly showed the existence of legacies from previous years and documented the mechanism behind them. Legacies in aboveground net primary production were similar in absolute…
New Rainfall Manipulation Paper
Congratulations Laureano on your new paper just published in Ecosphere!! This paper reports on a new system that alters precipitation for experimental plots from 80% reduction to 80% increase relative to ambient, is low cost, and is fully solar powered. This two-part system consists of a rainout shelter that intercepts water and sends it to a temporary storage tank, from…