Abstract

Abstract Drylands are water-limited ecosystems that cover almost half the world’s terrestrial surface, store about as much carbon in their topsoil as live forest plants globally, and are home to over one third of the world’s human population. These ecosystems are transforming in the public eye from “post-apocalyptic wastelands” to potentially key players for climate change mitigation. Yet climate extremes in drylands, like drought and flooding, and changes to natural disturbance regimes, like fire, result in highly variable responses that challenge typical paradigms in ecology. Join me as I discuss past and current work disentangling global change drivers on dryland ecosystem biogeochemistry through long-term field experiments.

The first part of my talk will explore how the nitrogen cycle acclimates to precipitation extremes in a semi-arid grassland, shedding light on the limitations and assumptions of space-for-time substitutions often used in global change studies. In the second part, I will present ongoing work with Professor Adam Pellegrini in the Department of Plant Sciences on fire manipulation experiments spanning seven dryland sites. Fire challenges ecological assumptions that disturbances typically reduce soil organic C. Frequent fires do not always lead to higher carbon losses, and fire suppression does not always lead to long-term carbon gains. We aim to unravel the mechanisms driving these variable responses and implications for fire management as an impactful nature-based climate solution.

Please note the seminars are for University Of Cambridge members ONLY .