Understanding how the interactions and feedbacks between plant function, climate, and soils ultimately affects the terrestrial water balance and subsurface flow processes is major challenge in scientific hydrology. This dissertation summarizes the findings of a manipulative climate warming experiment, an observational field study that utilized stable-isotope tracers, and associated modeling...
In deciduous species, water exits stems mainly through leaf traces
attached to the outer growth ring and yet we know that water ascends
throughout the entire cross-section of the sapwood. There is an increasing
amount of information on sap flow and sapwood hydraulic properties from
separate studies, but little information...
Desert plant communities are among the most sensitive to changes in soil water conditions. In areas with shallow aquifers, it is important to understand both the effects of groundwater alterations on vegetation and how changes in surface-soil water affect plant water uptake. Studies in arid environments have evaluated the effect...
Water treatments were applied to young ponderosa pine trees in the Eastern Cascades, Oregon during the 2003 growing season, and shade treatments were applied during the 2003 and 2004 growing seasons to understand how photosynthesis and soil respiration, particularly the root/rhizosphere fraction (R[subscript rrh]), would respond to increased moisture availability...
Map delineations of soil and vegetation for a 14,000
acre (5,800 hectare) site in the Oregon Coast Range were
compared. Research objectives were to ascertain the
types of information that could be extracted from delineation
comparisons and to develop a methodology suited
to this purpose. The latter objective was achieved...
Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii (coast Douglas-fir) is a tree of ecological, economic, and cultural value in its native North American Pacific Northwest (PNW) distribution. P. menziesii is host to a variety of well-documented endophytic foliar microorganisms, including the fungus Nothophaeocryptopus gaeumannii, the causal agent of Swiss needle cast (SNC), and...
Soil organic matter levels, soil temperature and moisture, and vegetation properties were measured along a sequence of death and
regeneration in a mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana) forest. The sequence is produced by slowly moving waves of the root pathogen Phellinus weirii. While analysis of variance for all sampled soil layers...
Field experiments were conducted with cauliflower (Brassica oleracea var.
botrytis cv. Snowball Y ) to determine crop development, yield, quality and
maturity response to various seasonal water levels, and to specific water stress
timing in relation to curd initiation. The effects of nitrogen rate, timing, and
source and the application...
Evaluation of meta-sedimentary bedrock as a source of stored water available
to plants in a mediterranean climate is presented based on: root length distribution
(RLD), root morphology, rock water holding capacity and seasonal pattern of water
depletion. Studies were performed in southwestern Oregon under young stands of
whiteleaf manzanita, ponderosa...