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Symposium

Session: : Ecological Drought: What Is the Role of Atmospheric Drying?

SYMP 2-3 - Water in the air: improving our understanding of how atmospheric drying affects dryland biota and biogeochemical cycles

Monday, August 7, 2023
4:10 PM – 4:30 PM PDT
Location: 258
The frequency and severity of ecological drought is increasing in many drylands around the world, yet our understanding of how atmospheric drying affects the organisms and biogeochemical cycles of these environments remains poor. Although relatively rare, recent work has elucidated the strong role atmospheric drying can play in the function of dryland vascular plants, and even less common are studies of atmospheric moisture effects on heterotrophs and biological soil crusts (biocrusts, photosynthetic surface soil organisms common in dryland worldwide). Addressing this knowledge gap is essential to understanding and forecasting how climate change, drought, and aridification will affect the trajectory of dryland communities, the functions that they regulate, and dry ecosystems’ contributions to global biogeochemical cycles and climate. In this talk we talk will synthesize published and new data regarding atmospheric moisture controls over dryland biological activity and feedbacks to climate change, including vascular plants, biocrusts, and soil heterotrophs. We will consider how observational, experimental, remote sensing, and modeling approaches to understanding relationships between atmospheric moisture and dryland structure and function can provide a powerful way forward for improving our understanding of these vast, diverse, and globally-important ecosystems in the context of change.