2021 Desert Ecology Short-Course Presentation Schedule

Below is the presentation schedule for this year’s Desert Ecology Short-Course. The full 3-day itinerary can be found here. Click on each student presentation title to view their abstract!

Jornada LTER Desert Ecology Short-Course Presentation Schedule (Tuesday-Wednesday June 29-30, 2021)

Speaker	Affiliation	Title
Tuesday, June 29 Student Oral Presentations (8:00-11:15 am)	Presentations by JRN students; 2-minute intros + 12-minute talks + 3 minutes for questions. Students will present in the following order:
Courtney Currier	ASU	Nitrogen cycling in a semiarid grassland under extreme rainfall conditions
Mikaela Hoellrich	NMSU	Biogeochemical function and microbial diversity in Chihuahuan Desert biocrusts
Samuel Jordan	ASU	Drought and disturbance in Chihuahuan Desert shrublands: synergistic effects on productivity and diversity
Corey Nelson	ASU	Beneficial heterotrophs enhance the effectiveness of cyanobacteria-based biocrust restoration in drylands
Ryan Schroeder	NMSU	Soil seed banks across an ecological state gradient of the Jornada Experimental Range: A timely test of a novel conceptual framework
		BREAK
Zac Keller	ASU	Hillslope-Channel Runoff Connectivity During the North American Monsoon in an Arid Piedmont Watershed
Eli Perez-Ruiz	ASU	Seasonality of Water-Carbon Dynamics in a Mixed Shrubland of a Bajada Landscape
Kieran Andreoni	U of Illinois	Gauging the relative effects of mammalian herbivores on shrub encroachment at Jornada Basin
Molly Reichenborn	NMSU	Plant Community Recovery following Chemical Control of Mesquite
Julie Rakes	ASU	A bacterium predatory on cyanobacteria from biological soil crusts

Speaker	Affiliation	Title
Tuesday, June 29 Student Poster Presentations (11:15-11:45)	Presentations by JRN students; 1 to 2-minute intros + 5 minute pre-recorded talks + 3 minutes for questions. Students will present in the following order:
Ifeanyi Nwigboji	UTEP	rDataFusion: A Project-Specific Multi-Data Fusion Tool for Discovering, Integrating, and Visualizing Heterogenous Long-term Data Sets
Kathleen Schaeffer	UTEP	Determining the effects of large-scale shrub removal on soil carbon in the Chihuahuan Desert
William Beamon	UTEP	Decadal landscape and species level greenness patterns in a northern Chihuahuan Desert Shrubland

Speaker	Affiliation	Title
Wednesday June 30 Student Oral Presentations (9:00-9:50 am)	Presentations by JRN students; 2-minute intros + 12-minute talks + 3 minutes for questions. Students will present in the following order:
Seth Burruss	NMSU	Remote Sensing of Biological Soil Crust in the Chihuahuan desert ecosystem
Tyler Turk	NMSU	Connectivity and Seed Availability in Drylands: Interactions of Vegetation and Seed Movement at Multiple Scales
Christopher Vito	ASU	Belowground Plant Responses to Changes in Precipitation: Effects of Amount, Duration, and Direction

Speaker	Affiliation	Title
Wednesday June 30 Investigator Presentations (9:50-12:30)	Presentations by JRN Investigators; 25-minute talks + 5 minutes for questions. PIs will present in the following order:
Osvaldo Sala	ASU	Past, present, and future of woody-plant encroachment: Disentangling the effects of climate and land-use change
Ferran Garcia-Pichel	ASU	Plant and microbial diversity show divergent responses to long term drought and nitrogen fertilization
		BREAK (10 minutes)
Jeff Herrick	USDA-ARS	LandPKS app for research & citizen science: overview and new Habitat and SoilHealth modules
Marguerite Mauritz	UTEP	Interannual and seasonal CO2 exchange and rainfall dynamics in a northern Chihuahuan Desert shrubland
Bob Schooley	U of Illinois	Cross-site and regional studies: Desert rodents track climate variability and intraguild predation in a managed landscape
Niall Hanan	NMSU	JRN shrub-shrub experiments: dryland challenges to ecological theory