EPSCoR Research Fellows: NSF: Forest Richness-Productivity Relationships: Scaling from Cells to Continents

This Research Infrastructure Improvement EPSCoR Research Fellows project provides a fellowship to an Assistant Professor and training for a graduate student at the University of Wyoming. This work will be conducted in collaboration with Dr. Kristina Anderson-Teixeira at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. Through the fellowship, the principal investigator will test if extreme weather reduces forest productivity by increasing competitive interactions among trees. More species-rich forests tend to be more productive, but whether this will continue in the future is uncertain. The principal investigator will study tree-ring structures, forest diseases, and forecasting models to assess how changes in weather and species richness may interactively alter forest productivity. This project bridges the gap between theory and application through agency partnerships at each study site (e.g., National Park Service, The Nature Conservancy, State Parks). Site-specific results wull be shared to inform forest management in areas of high conservation concern. The principal investigator will investigate changes in forest richness-productivity relationships across scales from tree cells up to the continent of North America. This study leverages wood anatomical traits to test ecological theory, a virtually untapped frontier in ecology, and is especially timely because increasing drought is catalyzing forest decline globally. The work will integrate empirical measurements of over 368,000 trees with timeseries of wood anatomical traits to provide unparalleled information about tree productivity responses to weather and richness. This fellowship will yield sustained career benefits to the principal investigator by laying the groundwork for future global collaborations and expanding the lab’s capacity to converge high-resolution dendroanatomy time series with field-based studies of forest change. Datasets developed here will be used as course-based undergraduate research experiences at the University of Wyoming. This use-inspired research project will inform forest conservation management, provide career development opportunities for an incoming PhD student, and train mentees in high-demand areas like forestry that contribute to the Wyoming workforce. This project is supported by the EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program: EPSCoR Research Fellows, which supports early- and mid-career investigators in eligible jurisdictions to develop collaborations at the nation’s private, government or academic research institutions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.