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Erika Winner is a Master’s student at the University of Minnesota Duluth in the Water Resources Science Program. She works in Dr. Salli Dymond’s Water and Tree Ecohydrology Research (WaTER) lab.  What does ecohydrology mean to you?
For me, ecohydrology is integrating our mechanistic model of the hydrologic cycle with our newer concepts of ecosystem functions and services. It scales from quantifying plant water use to regional and global impacts of human behavior on water resources. What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in? I have a BS in Biology and a BA in Geology, both from Western Washington University and a graduate certificate in Geographic Information Systems from Portland State University. How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology? I grew up going on multi-day whitewater rafting trips. My parents taught me how read the river to safely maneuver the raft through tricky sections. My mom’s philosophy is “work with the river instead of fighting it,” and that’s how I learned about the power of water. It wasn’t until I was working on my GIS certificate, after my career has meandered through marine mammalogy and environmental education, that my interest in rivers and hydrology resurfaced. I got a job as a field technician surveying streams for the Columbia Habitat Monitoring Program (CHaMP). That job made me realize I wanted to work in aquatic systems instead of marine ones. After two seasons, I went to work for the Bureau of Land Management in the Aquatic and Riparian Effectiveness Monitoring Program (AREMP), where I got to travel throughout the Pacific Northwest surveying streams. It got me to think a lot more about watersheds and how land management impacts stream health. After four seasons of pebble counts and measuring large wood, I decided it was time to pursue a master’s in water resources and answer the questions I was beginning to develop as a technician. What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology? I’m seeing a greater push to incorporate a lot of ecohydrology research into adaptive management plans. It’s really exciting to see land and water managers apply academic work to real-world problems. Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain. Dr. Margarita Saft has a series of papers from 2015 and 2016 that look at the impacts of multi-year drought on the rainfall-runoff relationship. I had drawn out a very similar schematic to the one shown in the papers just the day before I found them. I was beyond excited to find a similar approach to the one I was forming in my head. I also love the papers for their approachable analysis. The team was able to answer a fairly meaty question using some elegantly simple methods. It’s a good reminder that complicated is not always better. What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)? Like most people in this field, I try to get outside as much as possible. I love most water-based activities, whether it’s liquid or frozen, so skiing, rafting, kayaking, diving, etc. (Are there any water activities in the vapor phase?) I listen to too many podcasts. I enjoy being a perpetual beginner at watercolor painting, playing ukulele, and speaking Spanish. Dr. Katie Spahr is Research Program Manager at The Water Research Foundation.  What does ecohydrology mean to you?
For me, ecohydrology is an interdisciplinary field that explores relationships between water and ecological systems at different scales and different settings (i.e. developed vs. undeveloped). What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in? I have a BS (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo), a MS (CU Boulder), and a PhD (Colorado School of Mines) all in Environmental Engineering. I also am a licensed Professional Environmental Engineer; I am clearly consistent. My degrees and subsequent work experience have focused on urban water and treatment spanning the different types of water (e.g. stormwater, drinking water, grey water, water resources). I label myself as a water engineer. How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology? My PhD and Postdoc work focused on contextualizing and communicating the ancillary social and environmental benefits associated with green stormwater infrastructure (GSI). As part of this work, I explored the hydrologic-process and vegetated-related benefits of GSI. I really enjoyed diving into the literature that related larger urban green infrastructure installations, like parks, to positive ecological outcomes, like mitigation of urban heat, and exploring if the findings would be appropriate to apply to GSI. What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology? I think the most important and prescient work that is being done is looking at equity and the built environment. Specifically, I think we need to take a deeper dive into verifying that all the ancillary benefits of urban green infrastructure are actually being realized and which communities are receiving these benefits. I am part of a team hosting an AGU 2021 session entitled “Urban heat, vegetation, and water dynamics: new insights and implications for management and equity” and am looking forward to chatting with colleagues in the field about this important work. Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain. I find myself thinking a lot about Shorky et al. 2020 where the authors analyze the placement of GSI and the consequent socio-ecological risk in Philadelphia, PA, USA. The authors looked at how GSI sped up gentrification in some Philadelphia neighborhoods and lead to displaced and socio-ecological insecurity for vulnerable populations. Shokry, G., J. J. Connolly, and I. Anguelovski. 2020. “Understanding climate gentrification and shifting landscapes of protection and vulnerability in green resilient Philadelphia.” Urban Clim. 31 (Mar): 100539. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2019.100539. What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)? I like to read (mostly fiction), get outside (mountain biking, rock climbing, ice climbing; all the Colorado sports!), garden, cook, and hang out with my family and my dog. I’m looking forward to being able to travel more soon but I have loved all the road trips we have been taking lately. Dr. Dom Ciruzzi is an Assistant Professor of Geology at the College of William & Mary.  What does ecohydrology mean to you?
Broadly, I think ecohydrology addresses the bi-directional interaction between hydrological and ecological processes. For me, actively participating in ecohydrological research has provided another way of thinking about and interacting with the world around me. Through asking ecohydrological questions, I have been able to practice skills related to science communication, quantitative reasoning, tool development, fieldwork, lab analyses, and proper mosquito and tick prevention. I have also been able to experience beautiful landscapes, bask in vibrant sunrises and sunsets (often during 24-hour field campaigns), discover new (to me) concepts, and form relationships with inspiring people. In reflecting on how I got to this point, I am thankful and proud to identify as an ecohydrologist. What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in? B.A. in Geophysics and a minor in Math from SUNY Geneseo M.S. in Geological Sciences from the University at Buffalo Ph.D. in Geological Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology? My path to get to ecohydrology was non-linear and seemed to happen after winnowing down broad interests and through the encouragement of many mentors to keep pursuing my interests. I do remember having interests in water and environmental issues from a young age, but I certainly did not know I could build a career around researching ecohydrology questions, let alone what “ecohydrology” was. I also didn’t know a lot about grad school or what a PhD was until I got to college. Anyways, I’ll start at the beginning of when I went off to college. I started my undergraduate studies as a physics major. I also wanted to double major in art, but the art department got cut out the budget in my sophomore year (sad!). Another shift in my undergrad career happened when I took a class called Our Geologic Environment in my junior year. In that semester, I learned that I was much more interested in applying physics and math to learn about geological processes. I got involved in a research project with Dr. Scott Giorgis investigating the paleomagnetism of the Henry Mountains in Utah, which solidified my desire to pursue learning more about the geophysical sciences. I wrapped up my undergrad studies with a geophysics degree, but I didn’t know what aspect of geology/geophysics I liked most. I decided to enroll in the University at Buffalo’s M.A. in Geological Sciences program, to take graduate level classes and sift through and learn more about my academic interests. After a year of learning more about geology, I transitioned into the M.S. program at UB and began working with Dr. Chris Lowry on a research project investigating the impact of aquifer geometry on groundwater-surface water interactions in mountain meadows. This seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to explore my interests in geophysics and hydrogeology. Our research site was in Yosemite National Park, and after a fun day pushing a GPR cart around the meadow, we sat on pothole dome to relax. I remember sitting down on the granitic rock, looking across the meadow and the vastness around me, and thinking to myself something along the lines of “How can I keep finding myself in places like this in research and in life?” I was easily moved by conducting fieldwork at such a beautiful place and working with a wonderful, encouraging mentor. Following this experience, I was interested in learning more about the ways hydrology and geophysics could be synthesized to address the sustainability of natural and built ecosystems in the contexts of climate change and land use change. This led me to UW-Madison where I was advised by Dr. Steve Loheide through the Ph.D. program in Geological Engineering. Again, an incredible mentor helped me focus my research interests and it was somewhere in the middle of northern Wisconsin, socks pulled over my pants, shooting leaves off a tree in the middle of the night with a slingshot that I felt like I found my place as an ecohydrologist. What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology? I’m excited for the directions that new technology, monitoring efforts, and continuous data streams will take the field in advancing ecohydrological observations and models across scales. Importantly, as more and more data in ecohydrology and other fields become freely available and accessible, I view this as an important opportunity for ecohydrologists to leverage in collaborating with diverse disciplines to address wicked problems holistically. The inclusion of diverse voices in ecohydrology will always be an important area to embrace in moving forward. Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain. When I was trying to figure out research directions for my dissertation, I drew a lot of inspiration from Vose et al., 2011’s paper, “Forest ecohydrological research in the 21st century: What are the critical needs?.” In particular, this paper ends with five calls for important future research directions; I was drawn in by four of them as it related to my interests and skills I wanted to develop: (1) Understanding watershed responses to climate change and variability; (2) Developing integrated models that capitalize on long-term data; (3) Linking ecohydrological processes across scales; and, (4) Managing forested watershed to adapt to climate change. These research needs are, still, worth pursuing and this paper helped me wrap my head around focusing my dissertation research, so I have appreciated its lasting impact on me. What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)? I love to paint (digital, acrylic, oil), hike around, and cook new recipes. I just moved to Williamsburg, VA, so have been enjoying exploring this new area too! Dr. Pierre Gentine is the Maurice Ewing and J. Lamar Worzel Professor at Columbia University.  What does ecohydrology mean to you?
How plants regulates the exchange of water at the land surface and therefore the coupled exchanges of energy and carbon. What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in? My undergraduate degree is in engineering and applied mathematics. My MSc and PhD were in Civil Engineering at MIT. I started an MSc in theoretical physics but left as I wanted to work on something more applicable to daily problems. How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology? I first got interested in water after working in Morocco, as water is very scarce there. Then I started thinking about the exchange of energy and water at the land surface and it became clear to me that vegetation was the key regulator of those exchanges and thus that I had to study this as a coupled system, the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology? I think carbon cycle research and the importance of water in this cycle will remain prominent for the next few years. Climate change and how it affects through a myriad of processes the water and carbon cycle as well as landscape is also going to be a key area of research. Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain. Maybe my favorite paper(s) would be the one and unique series of papers from Eagleson (1978). They introduced many (if not most) modern concepts in hydrology, from stochastic rainfall, to vegetation interaction and annual water balance. Many recent papers are following on this pioneering work, yet sometimes are not aware of this initial work. What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)? I like running, skiing, hiking with my wife, listening to some good music (all the time especially when I am working), spending time with my family and friends, traveling and discovering new places (before COVID at least). In July 2021, Dr. Green finished a postdoctoral research position at Le Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (LSCE) with Philippe Ciais and Ashley Ballantyne. She is starting a new research position at the end of August in Trevor Keenan’s group at UC Berkeley.  What does ecohydrology mean to you?
To me, ecohydrology is the study of how ecosystems (specifically soil and vegetation) and the water cycle interact and modify one another. As others have said, it is an interdisciplinary area of research that includes atmospheric science, plant physiology, soil science, etc. For my work, I have also focused on how ecohydrology interacts with our global carbon cycle, and its ties to anthropogenic climate change. What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in? My undergraduate degree was from Tufts University in Civil Engineering. Then I have a MS, MPhil, and PhD from Columbia University in Earth and Environmental Engineering. How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology? I have always enjoyed being in nature and the outdoors, and I learned from a young age the importance of protecting our planet. As I grew up, I also became aware of threats to the places I loved caused by deforestation and anthropogenically caused climate change. Ecohydrology seemed like an obvious career choice for me, because it has allowed me to combine my passion for protecting the environment with the tools and problem-solving skills to do just that. It is still unclear if many ecosystems will be able to adapt and/or acclimate to a changing climate. In turn, it is also unclear how the responses of ecosystems to climate change will then feed-back on our carbon and water cycles. These are the sorts of research topics that I explore in my work. In doing so, I am contributing to improving our ability to understand and model these changes, giving us the opportunity to develop the best climate mitigation and policy to protect people and the environment. What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology? An emerging area is the use of new and improved remote sensing and reanalysis products to monitor vegetation status and diagnose water stress. The number of products available is increasing, while the temporal and spatial resolutions available are becoming finer. Meanwhile, reanalysis products are also being improved with time records continuously extending allowing for more robust studies. These products are expanding our capabilities to understand and monitor the interactions between ecosystems and the hydrologic cycle. I think that there is great potential for increasing our ability to understand our natural world with these new and improved products. Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain. One of the papers that I enjoyed reading was “Examining the evidence for decoupling between photosynthesis and transpiration during heat extremes”. In this paper they discuss several observational studies that demonstrated decoupling between plant photosynthesis and transpiration during heat extremes—that is, while photosynthesis was observed to decrease in high temperatures, transpiration was observed to either be sustained or increased. From there, they tested whether they could detect the same decoupling at the canopy scale using flux tower data. While the study results were not entirely conclusive, I enjoyed the paper for two reasons—firstly, it highlights the importance and some of the struggle between scaling between leaf and canopy scale, which is so important in the field of ecohydrology. Secondly, because it is just one example of how unique certain types of vegetation are, and really just how interesting different plant behavior can be (most plants decrease their transpiration rates as photosynthesis declines, at least at the same air dryness)! I found this plant response to heat somewhat counterintuitive, but in a way, it also made so much sense. Anyway, the paper left me thinking just how cool plants really are—and also how important it is for scientists to have an understanding of ecohydrology across spatial and temporal scales to really understand the whole story. What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)? I’m a big road cyclist, outdoors enthusiast, and I love to travel and explore new places. A perfect vacation for me would involve long bike rides, hiking in the mountains, and exploring new cities. Also, seeing family and friends is always great. Dr. Keith Smettem is Professor and Water for Food Program Leader, Institute of Agriculture, The University of Western Australia.  What does ecohydrology mean to you?
When we launched the journal Ecohydrology a number of years ago there was a lengthy debate about this among the associate editors and myself. To date, I have really seen no need to change two of core statements: Ecohydrology seeks to increase interdisciplinary insights by placing particular emphasis on interactions and associated feedbacks in both space and time between ecological systems and the hydrological cycle. Research in both terrestrial and aquatic systems is of interest provided it explicitly links ecological systems and the hydrologic cycle. What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in? BSc in Geography from Swansea University Wales and PhD in Hydrology from Sheffield University U.K. How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology? My early career was in Soil Physics and Physical Hydrology. I was particularly interested in how soil structure and macropore patterns influenced water and chemical transport processes and how near-saturated hydraulic properties could be measured and incorporated into flow and chemical transport models. After about 20 years of work in that area I ‘upscaled’ to consider the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum and larger scale catchment hydrologic processes. At about the same time I started some research interactions with foresters interested in how to best identify areas for new plantation forestry in South-West Australia. Our region is also a ‘canary in the coalmine’ for evaluating how climate change is affecting forests and streamflow because rainfall has been declining since the mid-1970s and temperature has been rising. So, the transition to Forest ecohydrologic work was a natural next step and this has now extended into how regional climate change is impacting on both natural and replanted forests. Work has also expanded to consider broad-scale restoration of degraded lands through reforestation and carbon sequestration and I also have interests in ecohydrologic feedbacks induced by soil water repellency in natural ecosystems. What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology? I am going to take a different perspective to other LEAFS here because I believe that for ecohydrology to grow, THE important emerging area is how to teach and incorporate Ecohydrology into the University curriculum. The multi-disciplinary nature of Ecohydrology poses a problem but is not insurmountable. Breaking it down there are two main threads: terrestrial ecohydrology and aquatic ecohydrology. The former requires skills in soil and environmental physics, plant physiology, hydrology and remote sensing. The latter adds skills and understanding of hydrobiology, river management and restoration and possibly limnology. Many of the pressing environmental problems of our time require these skillsets to address them and yet at present no course like this exists anywhere in the world. Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain. Peter Eagleson’s book ‘Ecohydrology: Darwinian Expression of Vegetation Form and Function’ influenced my thinking about productivity maximization as a target and what constrains this objective. It is particularly relevant when thinking about how ecosystems respond and adjust to climate change and how revegetation schemes can fail if the environmental settings are unrealistic and/or poorly understood. Choat et al. (2012) Global convergence in the vulnerability of forests to drought. Nature. 491. 10.1038/nature11688. This letter showed how hydraulic safety margins across all world forest biomes are largely independent of mean annual precipitation and thus equally vulnerable to hydraulic failure regardless of their current rainfall environment. What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)? Well I am a fly fishing nut, so I do get to see first hand how humans and climate are impacting salmonid distributions around the world. Lorrayne Miralha is a Ph.D. Candidate at Arizona State University and a soon to be Postdoctoral Researcher at Oregon State University (Nov 2021)!  What does ecohydrology mean to you?
Scientifically speaking, Ecohydrology is the discipline that addresses the interconnection between the environment and water fluxes. For me, ecohydrology goes beyond the investigation of these interlinks. Ecohydrology is the link between my professional and personal life. I love studying how the environment mechanisms are interconnected with hydrological processes in the face of human interventions. Investigating these relationships is crucial to develop solutions for a more sustainable future. Ecohydrology allows me to do that, and I am grateful for all the scientists that have contributed to a better understanding of the effects of hydrological processes on ecosystem functions. What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in? I got my undergraduate degree in Forest Engineering from the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ) together with an exchange program at Oregon State University. I have a Master’s in Physical Geography from the University of Kentucky and almost a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Arizona State University. How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology? I grew up in a rural area (small fruit farm) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. While growing up, I was curious about the plant mechanisms and how trees used to produce what I was seasonally harvesting. Over time, I saw a shift in my farm’s landscape. I saw trees drying out, wildfires happening with more frequency, and our small pond turning to foamy green. This is one of the reasons I became a forest engineer and got a master’s in geography. My master’s mentor, Dr. Daehyun Kim, opened my eyes to the spatial phenomena and their unexplored interlinks with water quality. I felt that everything I learned was helping me find the answers and solutions to my own farm back in Brazil. Today, together with my mentor Dr. Rebecca Muenich, I went beyond local scale understanding. I developed regional and national scale models to better understand the impact of specific water pollution driving agents and how this pollution holds over time and space. I like to call myself a watershed modeler and a geospatial data enthusiast, and I see much yet to be studied within climate, hydrological processes, and human interventions. What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology? With rising temperatures and more frequent extreme events, there is a lot we need to understand to develop environmental solutions. With the intensification of hydrological phenomena, most of the ecosystems interlinks we know may be jeopardized. I see the field growing towards interlinks among nutrient interactions, climate, human interventions, and most importantly spatial and temporal correlations among all these phenomena, I believe understanding these interconnections will help us better describe tipping points and develop more assertive solutions. Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain. It is hard to choose only one. I am very impressed by the work of Dr. Marie-Josée Fortin. Her research, in general, has guided me through my first year in graduate school, principally her book Spatial Analysis: a guide for ecologists, that until this day, I keep referring to for refreshing spatial modeling concepts and rules of thumb for spatial analysis and phenomena. Additionally, one of my favorite papers is by Dr. Jonathan D. Phillips “Badass Geomorphology”. This paper showed me how science can be playful and that your fluvial landscape may not always conform to the rules. It was an inspiring read in a moment I thought my science was too analytical and less insightful. I am also very impressed by the work of my mentors. I have learned a lot from both Dr. Kim and Dr. Muenich’s research. “A quantitative approach to evaluating ecosystem services“ by Dr. Rebecca L. Muenich brings a very interesting methodological framework to compare trade-offs in ecosystem services between land-use scenarios and watersheds. This paper brings the dynamics we should account for when talking about solutions for sustainable outcomes. I also like the overview paper by Wurtsbaugh, Paerl, and Dodds (2019) on Nutrients, eutrophication, and harmful algal blooms from the freshwater to marine continuum. What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)? I’ve always loved exploring my surroundings. I am very fortunate because I am not only from South America, but I also had the chance to live I have lived in 4 states in the US with very distinct geographies (Oregon, Kentucky, Michigan, and Arizona). I enjoy road trips and hiking. Some of my favorite adventures were visiting the Crater Lake National Park, the Red River Gorge, Sequoia National Park, and all the lakes in the Great Lakes region. Dr. Phoebe Morton is a Higher Scientist Officer (essentially a postdoc) in the Agri-Environment Branch at the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute in Northern Ireland, currently working within the Air Quality team. Twitter: @PhoebeM_AFBI  What does ecohydrology mean to you?
Ecohydrology is the study of the ways in which water (both quantity and quality) affect plant, animal and fungal ecology and the ecosystems which they inhabit – and how these in turn affect the water. Fundamentally, it is the linkage of water and life, which is rather important since without water, there is no life. What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in? BSc in Biology (with a year in industry) at the University of York, UK. PhD in Environmental Science with a thesis entitled “A Burning Issue: Assessing the impact of alternative grouse moor managements on vegetation dynamics and carbon cycling on UK blanket bogs” at the University of York, UK. How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology? That’s a really interesting question since when I was asked to write this, I initially denied being an ecohydrologist! To be honest, I’m not sure I’d ever really heard of ecohydrology as a discipline! However, once I started thinking about it, I realixed I’ve certainly dabbled in ecohydrology, even if I’m not a fully paid-up member. During my undergraduate degree, I had the opportunity to do a year in “industry” as part of the degree and ended up with a placement at the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust in the Highlands of Scotland. Whilst most of what I did involved radio-tracking grouse, I was constantly surrounded by peatlands, many of which were burnt to encourage heather plants to feed grouse for the shooting industry, and I became interested in these ecosystems. This led me to a PhD looking at the impacts on carbon and vegetation dynamics of burning and other alternative managements on peatlands that were being managed as grouse moors. Given peat can be up to 97% water, inevitably hydrology came into it, and I ended up combining everything in a study looking at how peatland management, vegetation type and water table impact the measurable volume of peat (the surface really does “breathe” in line with water dynamics) and hence the calculated quantities of stored carbon. I continued with the hydrological theme in a postdoc at Ulster University/the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, monitoring the effects of a financial incentive scheme in agricultural areas on the Irish border on water quality. In the Source to Tap project (www.sourcetotap.eu), we specifically targeted pesticide, color and turbidity reduction in the river water, which is abstracted for drinking. I’m currently working on the rather different topic of abating ammonia emissions from agriculture but, given how wet it usually is on the island of Ireland, I’m sure some ecohydrology will creep into it soon enough. What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology? Given my rather peat-y background, I think a really important area of ecohydrology that needs exploring is what will happen to peatlands across the world under different weather patterns. Certainly Sphagnum-based peatlands (which encompasses most northern hemisphere peatlands – although there are others in the tropics) tend to exist in a relatively cool and damp climate envelope. Theoretically, they can shift location as the climate changes – but human activities have already stressed many peatlands and urban and industrial developments potentially mean there is nowhere for some to go. Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain. It’s not a paper but actually a report. Peatbogs and Carbon: A critical synthesis by Richard Lindsay (2010) (https://repository.uel.ac.uk/item/862y6)[MP1] details pretty much anything you need to know about peatbogs, from the basics of their hydrological functioning, though typical vegetation assemblages, carbon storage and carbon accumulation to the effects of a multitude of different (largely anthropogenic) pressures on peatlands. This is a document I’ve returned to time and time again, to the point where it became known by a few of us during my PhD as “The Bog Bible”! What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)? I enjoy being outside and regularly go walking and exploring different corners of Northern Ireland and, when travel restrictions allow, the Republic of Ireland. I also scuba dive, mainly in the UK (yes, it may be cold and dark, but is more beautiful than and probably as diverse as many warmer locations), and occasionally go open-water swimming in the sea. More recently, I have got into yoga and (pre-Covid) pottery. [MP1]This is probably a bit weird to put in a repository link but it is the most stable link I can find to it and the webpage contains two different links to pdfs of the report that work, which is better than it used to be! Dr. Aaron Potkay is a post-doctoral associate (effective 8/2/2021) in Dr. Xue Feng’s Ecohydrology and Global Environmental Change lab at the University of Minnesota.  What does ecohydrology mean to you?
Ecohydrology is an interdisciplinary field that aims to better understand (1) the hydrological factors determining the natural development of ecosystems, often vascular vegetation, especially in regard of their functional value (e.g. diversity, structure, carbon storage, energy and gas fluxes), (2) the biological and ecological factors determining the movement, distribution, and management of water, and (3) their feedbacks. My personal focus in ecohydrology looks to how plants regulate and couple the water and carbon cycles through mechanistic modeling of plants’ water-uptake, transpiration, carbon assimilation, and growth. For plants, water- and carbon-use are intrinsically linked. What are your undergraduate and graduate degrees in? BS, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech MS, Geotechnical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin PhD, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University How did you arrive at working in/thinking about ecohydrology? Prior to my doctoral experience, my Masters studies focused on soil physics, vadose zone hydrology, and unsaturated soil mechanics. These scientific disciplines would eventually ease my transition into ecohydrology and plant hydraulics (the study of water transport through plants). Of course, soil water is the lower boundary condition for plant water-use, and less obviously, the mathematics of water transport through soils is virtually identical to that through plants’ vasculature. I began formally thinking about ecohydrology during my second year as a PhD student working with my advisor, Dr. Ying Fan. I decided to build upon her research of hydrologically-mediated rooting depth by studying the biological constraints on root growth. After reviewing the literature, however, I realized that root growth could not be considered separately from the whole plant. Water-and carbon-transport between all organs determine the multiple limiting factors on growth. Meanwhile, plants develop growth strategies unique to their hydrological environment that can compensate for these limitations. Hence, plant water-use, carbon-use, and growth became a unifying paradigm for me to understand and predict ecosystem response to environmental change. What do you see as an important emerging area of ecohydrology? I see plant water storage (hydraulic capacitance) as a relatively unexplored factor for hydrological fluxes, plant functioning, ecosystem resilience to drought, and forest mortality that has begun its advent. Transpiration can be sourced from water storage when evaporative demand exceeds supply, and thus storage impacts hydrological fluxes. Similarly, recent studies have explored the loss of water storage as a predictor of plant mortality and have hypothesized water storage to be involved in the mixing of stable isotope tracers. Presumably, plants with larger water storage may initially transpire more aggressively than their counterparts with less storage under water-stress. I interpret the emergence of plant water storage as a shift to a whole-plant perspective on water-use, particularly because it emphasizes the role of the phloem or inner bark, where most plant water is stored, and which have typically not been considered in the past when formulating hypotheses. Do you have a favorite ecohydrology paper? Describe/explain. I greatly admire Buckley & Roberts’ (2006) “DESPOT, a process-based tree growth model that allocates carbon to maximize carbon gain” (https://doi.org/10.1093/treephys/26.2.129). Since reading it first several years ago, I continue to revisit it regularly, including its appendix. It revealed to me how the complex web of plant mechanisms (e.g. xylem sap-flow, transpiration, light interception, photosynthesis, stomatal behavior, plant size-mediated hydraulic conductance, nutrient partitioning) can be neatly expressed in a relatively simple, consistent framework. What do you do for fun (apart from ecohydrology)? I read indie comics and pulp science fiction, watch poorly-budgeted horror films, play Dungeons and Dragons, enthusiastically collect music (favorites including Krautrock, emo, post-punk, and power-pop), see live music (at least pre-COVID), and shred on lead guitar (and occasionally scream) in bands. In the past year, my partner has introduced me to outdoor activities, particularly kayaking. |
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