Increased warming in tundra ecosystems is resulting the release of carbon into the atmosphere through ecosystem respiration, contributing additionally to climate change. A recent meta-analysis published Nature revealed factors that contribute to ecosystem respiration, including soil nitrogen concentration, pH and ratio of carbon to nitrogen.
More than half of the American West’s iconic river is being diverted, mostly for use in irrigated agriculture, according to a study released today.
The findings, which challenge existing climate models, underscore the need to refine predictions and understand the cascading effects on ecosystems, including our own in northern Arizona.
Nearly 800,000 Americans suffer a stroke every year, and most end up with some level of permanent motor disability. One researcher at Northern Arizona University is developing a device that could help healthcare providers personalize care for stroke survivors—and improve their chances of full recovery.
How do you get students excited about geosciences? You get them into the geosciences.
The number of unhoused individuals in Arizona jumped almost 25 percent from between 2020 and 2022 as safe, affordable housing disappeared throughout the state. This is a thorny, multifaceted issue, and one that health sciences researcher Sara Shuman is tackling as part of a federal effort to better understand and address homelessness throughout the nation. With a focus on health equity, Shuman and her team will document the needs and experiences of people living in encampments and evaluate the strategies use to manage homeless encampments in Yuma, Pima and Maricopa counties.
This innovation in forest biometrics introduces advanced models for accurately predicting the size and carbon-storing capacity of American forests, playing a key role in combating climate change and guiding sustainable forest management efforts.
New research from Northern Arizona University has explained coast redwood’s remarkable ability to recover from very severe fire, a rare sign of optimism amid a landscape increasingly scarred by severe fires.
In a first-of-its-kind study, NAU research professor Chris Hakkenberg is taking a necessary step to finding a solution to biodiversity loss: mapping and measuring biodiversity across the U.S. using NASA's space-borne lidar.
Using satellite images, a team of researchers led by Northern Arizona University found that fires in North America's boreal forest may be changing the environment in ways that researchers didn't previously anticipate.
A study published in Nature found that, while protected areas in Southeast Asia were shown to be good for animals inside their borders, as expected, that protection also extended to nearby unprotected areas, which was a surprise.
A new study, which combines satellite thermal and in situ warming experiment data from across the world’s tropical forests, looks at the variation of leaf temperatures within forest canopies. The data collected revealed that a small percentage of tropical leaves are already reaching, and occasionally exceeding, the temperatures at which they can no longer function—suggesting that as climate change continues, entire canopies could die, eliminating a key regulator of Earth’s climate and putting the world’s biodiversity at risk.
A $5 million grant from the Office of the Governor is funding the Arizona Wildfire Initiative (AZWI), an innovative new program at NAU aimed at ensuring the state of Arizona is better prepared for wildfire prevention, management and recovery.
The availability, speed and effectiveness of genomic sequencing increased dramatically during the pandemic, as scientists worldwide rushed to find ways to track and predict the virus’s movement and evolution. It also was critical in the development of effective vaccines. In an essay published today, two NAU biologists argue that building on this momentum is critical in society’s response to future pandemics, but it requires significant collaboration and investment now, before the next pathogen is threatening society.
NAU researcher Truong Nghiem received an NSF CAREER grant to develop a comprehensive and flexible framework for effective and efficient machine learning with physical constraints, which can fundamentally change how we apply machine learning to complex systems like smart energy systems, industrial automation systems and autonomous robots and cars.
The space laser GEDI has allowed researchers to 3D map Earth's rainforests for the first time ever, helping us understand the forest canopy and providing vital information about Earth’s carbon cycle and how it is changing.
The Department of Defense Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) has awarded Northern Arizona University a grant upwards of $1 million to support a five-year research project aimed at understanding the impact of invasive species on threatened and endangered (T&E) plants.
A planetary scientist at NAU is part of a Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission to travel to Mars and survey the planet’s two moons, including collecting a sample from one and returning it to Earth.
A new project led by Northern Arizona University, with various collaborators throughout the nation, will help the United States better protect the critical supply chain infrastructure and the supply chains that keeps the country and its economy running.
A team of researchers has highlighted human-wildlife conflict as one of the globe’s most pressing human development and conservation dilemmas. New research published in Communications Biology looked at 133 countries where 18 large carnivores ranged, and found that a person farming with cattle in developing countries such as Kenya, Uganda or India were up to eight times more economically vulnerable than those living in developed economies such as Sweden, Norway or the U.S.
A review article published today in Nature addresses this conflict between models and evidence, known as the Holocene global temperature conundrum. Lead author Darrell Kaufman, a Regents’ professor in the School of Earth and Sustainability, and University of Arizona postdoctoral researcher Ellie Broadman, a co-author who worked on this study while earning her Ph.D. at NAU, analyzed a broad swath of available data from the last 12,000 years to break down the conundrum.
In honor of International Day of Women and Girls in Science, celebrated on Feb. 11, Northern Arizona University asked a variety of woman scientists why they chose their field and what advice they had for women and girls hoping to follow the same path.
The five-year multidisciplinary initiative is focused on tree species critical to Western Apache tribal communities and includes multiple researchers from throughout NAU.
NAU professor Jeff Foster was recently awarded a grant by the DoD for a new study, “Demonstration of Metabarcoding for Monitoring Bird Species Habitat Quality on DoD Installations.” This three-year, $900,000 project will focus on five insectivorous species on four military sites.
An innovative protocol called PepSeq is changing the way researchers test for contagious diseases—and this knowledge should change the way humanity responds to future pandemics. NAU researcher Jason Ladner and a team of collaborators from TGen published a comprehensive study about PepSeq that lays out the process, the tool and how to interpret the results.
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