Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

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  Climate Change and Wildfire Impacts in Southwest Forests and Woodlands (Climate Change and Variability in Southwest Ecosystems Series)

  Crimmins, Michael; Garfin, Gregg; Natural Resources & the Environment, School of (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ), 2006-11)

  Southwest forests are complex systems that are influenced by climate variability. Wildfires naturally occur in these forests and woodlands, but with an increasing population, land management decisions are becoming more difficult. This publication is a result of discussions from the "Workshop on Climate Variability and Ecosystem Impacts" that was sponsored by UA Cooperative Extension in February 2005. It provides a summary of the current situation, a summary of climate change science for land management, and a brief description of suggested future research in climate science as it relates to forests and woodlands.
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  Insects, Diseases, and Abiotic Disorders in Southwest Forests and Woodlands (Climate Change and Variability in Southwest Ecosystems Series)

  DeGomez, Tom; Garfin, Gregg; Natural Resources & the Environment, School of (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ), 2006-08)

  Recent events in the forests of the Southwest have prompted scientists to consider the role of climate variability in insect and disease cycles. Over 70 million pine trees along with millions of other conifers died in 2002-03. Average temperature increases of 3°C enabled the MPB at those high elevations to achieve univoltine (having one generation per year) reproduction leading to previously unheard of outbreaks in white bark pine at high elevation sites in Idaho.Aspen defoliation in Arizona and New Mexico averaged ~ 20,375 acres from 1990 to 1997. A series of events has contributed to the decline of aspen since 1997.
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  A Palynological Study of Landscape Change During the Spanish Colonial Period in the U.S. Southwest

  Arendt, Nicole Marie (The University of Arizona., 2010)

  The introduction, intentional or otherwise, of plants (both cultivated plants and weeds), animals, and technologies that occurred with Spanish colonization in the Southwest had profound impacts on vegetation and landscape that are reflected in larger changes in indigenous land and resource use, culture, and identity. Archaeological palynology provides information on both the environmental and agricultural impacts of colonialism. Through the study of two sites occupied during the colonial period, in different areas, reflecting different experiences of colonized groups, the range of effects of introductions is investigated. Paa-ko, in New Mexico, was occupied in the early colonial period and was more peripheral to the colonial system than was the second site, Tumacacori, in southern Arizona, the location of a mission that was occupied into the mid-1800s.The identification of introductions, including both new plants and new ways of cultivating and processing plants, in the pollen record is central to this study. The differentiation, using pollen diameters, of grasses is particularly important, although studies of reference pollen show a great overlap between these types. Because of the importance of pollen diameters for the identification of this and other pollen types, factors that could affect pollen size, including processing methods, which did not seem to have much effect, and mounting media (and time since processing), which had rather dramatic effects on diameters, are also important. These and other experimental studies conducted to provide analogs to agricultural and processing areas that would have been seen in the Spanish colonial period, can assist in the interpretation of pollen samples from sites of this period, including the two sites discussed here. While the pollen evidence from Paa-ko demonstrates a continuation of the cultivation of native crops, including maize and squash, and the absence of cultivation of introductions, pollen from Tumacacori demonstrates the absence of cultivation of native crops, particularly maize, and, possibly, cultivation of wheat, in the area closest to the mission and most heavily influenced by missionary control, reflecting, perhaps, the greater integration of Tumacacori into the colonial system and a greater acceptance and use of introduced crops in this later colonial period.