Jornada Trails

Contents:

• Where Are They Now?
  An examination of the fate of 20 REU students trained at the Jornada from 1991 to 1996
  
• Reynolds Receives Two Grants to Foster International Comparisons to the Jornada LTER
  
• July 10, 1997: Friends of the Jornada Symposium
  
• August 9, 1997: Pre-ESA Jornada Field Trip
  
• Book Review: A Valuable Addition to the Desert Ecologist's Library
  
• Featured Investigator: Kris Havstad
  
• Recent Publications from the Jornada
  

Where Are They Now?

Since 1991 the Jornada has been host to a large number of undergraduate students who have conducted field investigations as part of the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

Their projects have ranged from studies of the seed bank of desert annuals to examinations of runoff and erosion from desert soils. Several students working with Peter Herman of New Mexico State University have been coauthors of one or more papers published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology that describe aspects of microbial ecology in Chihuahuan desert soils.

Over the six-year period, a total of twenty REU students have come from four universities around the U.S., and they have worked with eleven different advisors during their field seasons at the Jornada.

Jornada Trails polled the students’ advisors to ask what has become of the students in our REU program, and the responses are gratifying:

• Seven students now pursue graduate degrees or careers in environmental
• science.
• Five have pursued other degrees or employment--all in some aspect of
• science or engineering.
• Three are still in school.
• Five have an unknown fate.

We believe that NSF should be encouraged that more one-third of our REU students have continued in some aspect of environmental science.

Beginning in 1996, an additional REU program, cooperative between Howard University in Washington D.C. and New Mexico State University, began with the goal of bringing ethnically and culturally diverse students to the field environment of the Chihuahuan desert. After a few weeks at the Jornada, all students travel to Washington, D.C., to see how government agencies determine our country’s environmental policy.

Also funded by the National Science Foundation, this REU program enrolled nine students in 1996, and a similar number is expected in the coming year.

Reynolds Receives Two Grants to Foster International Comparisons to the Jornada LTER

James F. Reynolds (Duke University) has recently received two grants to compare research findings at the Jornada to other, similar desert sites around the world.

Reynolds received $105,000 from the Carnegie Mellon Center for Integrated Studies of the Human Dimensions of Global Change to allow comparative, modeling studies of semi-arid ecosystems in the Karoo of South Africa, in the arid rangelands of Australia, in the Monte scrublands in Argentina, and in the grasslands at the Jornada.

Separately, Reynolds received $85,000 as part of the initial set of awards from the Inter-American Institute (IAI) for Global Change Research. The IAI grant will support a graduate student at Duke who will develop a quantitative estimate of changes in the water balance of rangelands that have experienced desertification.

With an eye toward the importance of biodiversity, this research will focus on whether cattle selectively feed on species with higher realized growth rates and therefore greater uptake and transpiration of soil water.

July 10, 1997

Friends of the Jornada Symposium

Be sure to register for the annual Friends of the Jornada Symposium to be held at New Mexico State University on Thursday, July 10, 1997. A full day of informal research presentations will be followed by an evening barbeque at the USDA Headquarters Ranch.

This is the Seventh Annual Symposium, and we expect that it will continue to provide a lively exchange of ideas and data on the Chihuahuan desert environment. Optional field trips to visit individual research sites are available on the following day.

For information contact: Kris Havstad, USDA/ARS Jornada Experimental Range, Box 3JER, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, N.M., 88003

August 9, 1997

Pre-ESA Jornada Field Trip

As part of the Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, the Society will sponsor a field tour of USDA and LTER research at the Jornada. The trip will be held Saturday, August 9, l997--one day before formal registration for the ESA meeting in Albuquerque. Among various studies, participants will see how the LTER provides long-term records of net primary productivity, grazing impact, wind erosion and dust deposition. If you are interested in participating, please consult the April 1997 issue of the Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America for details of registration and logistics.

Book Review

A Valuable Addition to the Desert Ecologist's Library

Ecological Communities and Processes in the Mojave Desert Ecosystem, Rock Valley, Nevada, by P. W. Rundel and A. C. Gibson. Cambridge, 386 pp., illus., $100

Rundel and Gibson provide a broad overview of plant and animal ecology in the Mojave Desert. Separate chapters deal with perennial and annual plants, and with mammals, reptiles, birds, arthropods and soil organisms. Adaptations of Mojave Desert plants and animals are treated at length, and nitrogen cycling also receives extended treatment. The book concludes with a discussion of human impacts on Mojave Desert ecosystems.

While generally applicable to much of the Mojave Desert, the main data on which the book relies were collected over many years from studies at Rock Valley, located in the Nevada Test Site. Rock Valley was chosen as a validation site under the International Biological Program (IBP), and the authors argue that it is one of the best studied warm desert sites in the world.

A colleague loaned me the book for perusal one afternoon, and I found it hard to put down that evening. The geologist, the biologist, the ecologist, and the soil scientist will all find much fascinating information in these pagesbut be prepared for the hefty price tag.
--Peter K. Haff, Division of Earth Sciences, The Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University

Featured Investigator: Kris Havstad

Jornada Trails is pleased to recognize Kris Havstad as its featured investigator. Arriving in Las Cruces from Montana State University, Kris assumed the position of Supervisory Range Scientist for the USDA's 78,000-ha Jornada Experimental Range in 1988. He immediately fostered a productive collaboration with the LTER program that has flourished for the last decade. No one visiting the Jornada can escape his presence--his insight into the natural history of the desert and his quiet humor on the daily activities of cattle ranching.

Trained in range science at Oregon State (BS), New Mexico State (M.S.) and Utah State (Ph.D) Universities, Kris has focused his research on the diet selection of rangeland animals. A variety of his papers have shown how animals learn and respond to the differences in plant tissue chemistry that determine food preferences.

At Montana State, Kris worked on methods for controlling noxious weeds using livestock rather than costly herbicides. Before leaving Montana, Kris had been promoted to Associate Professor, also receiving MSU's Award of Excellence and the citation "Rangeman of the Year" by the Montana Association of Conservation Districts.

Kris is a rich source of ideas that he shares in cooperative research with USDA and LTER personnel. He is the driving force behind our recent large-scale replicated experiments to examine the effects of intense cattle grazing at different seasons on the ecology of the grass-shrub transition in New Mexico. He has also worked closely with the effort by the U.S. National Academy of Science to "rescue" certain early data gathered at the Jornada and stored as slowly deteriorating field notes. These priceless records of vegetation cover from early in the century represent the essence of long-term ecological research. Recognized in 1995 by the Outstanding Achievement Award given by the Society for Range Management, Kris Havstad has been an outstanding and crucial addition to the LTER program at the Jornada.

Recent Publications from the Jornada

Anderson, D. M., R. E. Estell, K. M. Havstad, W. L. Shupe, R. Libeau and L. W. Murray. 1996. Differences in ewe and wether behavior when bonded to cattle. Applied Animal Behavior Science 47: 201-209.

Anderson, D. M., P. Nachman, R. E. Estell, T. Ruekgauer, K. M. Havstad, E. L. Fredrickson and L.W. Murray. 1996. The potential of laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) spectra of sheep feces to determine diet botanic composition. Small Ruminant Research 21: 1-10.

Fredrickson, E. L., J. R. Barrow, J. E. Herrick, K. M. Havstad, and B. Longland. 1996. Low cost seeding practices for desert environments. Restoration and Management Notes 14: 72-73.

Fredrickson, E. L., R. E. Estell, K. M. Havstad, T. Ksiksi, J. Van Tol, and M. D. Remmenga. 1996. Effects of ruminant digestion on germination of Lehmann lovegrass seed. Journal of Range Management 50: 20-26.

Ho, M., R. E. Roisman, and R. A. Virginia. 1996. Using strontium and rubidum tracers to characterize nutrient uptake patterns in creosotebush and mesquite. Southwestern Naturalist 41: 239-247. Huenneke, L. F. 1997. Outlook for plant invasions: Interactions with other agents of global change. Pp. 95-103. In J. O. Luken and J. W. Thieret (eds.). Assessment and Management of Plant Invasions. Springer-Verlag, New York.

Huenneke, L. F. and I. R. Noble. l996. Ecosystem function of biodiversity in arid ecosystems. Pp. 99-128. In H. A. Mooney, J.H. Cushman, E. Medina, O. E. Sala and E.-D. Schulze (eds.). Functional Roles of Biodiversity: A Global Perspective. John Wiley and Sons, New York.

Kemp, P. R., J. F. Reynolds, Y. Pachepsky, and J.-L. Chen. 1997. A comparative modeling study of soil water dynamics in a desert ecosystem. Water Resources Research 33: 73-90.

Li, H. and J. F. Reynolds. l997. Modeling effects of spatial pattern, drought, and grazing on rates of rangeland degradation: A combined Markov and cellular automaton approach. Pp. 211-230. In D. A. Quattrochi and M. F. Goodchild (eds.). Scale in Remote Sensing and GIS. Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, Florida.

Richie, J. C., A. Rango, W. P. Kustas, T. J. Schmugge, K. Brubaker, X. Zhan, K. M. Havstad, B. Nolan, J. H. Prueger, J. H. Everitt, M. R. Davis, F. R. Schiebe, J. D. Ross, K. S. Humes, L. E. Hipp, K. Ramalingam, M. Menenti, W. G. M. Bastiaanssen, and H. Pelgrum. 1996. JORNEX: An airborne campaign to quantify rangeland vegetation change and plant community-atmospheric interactions. Pp. 54-66. In The Proceedings of the Second International Airborne Remote Sensing Conference and Exposition. San Francisco, Ca.