Volcanoes as agents of past environmental change

Holocene fire activity as a record of past environmental change

Fire is the dominant form of natural disturbance in temperate forests, and, as such, it serves as a process that modulates forest susceptibility to climate change, disease, and other forms of disturbance. Fire has been identified as an important catalyst of vegetation change during rapid climate shifts in the past (e.g. T. Clark et al., 1996; Swetnam & Betancourt, 1998), and it has been implica...

Volcanoes and ENSO over the Past Millennium

The controversial claim that El Niño events might be partially caused by radiative forcing due to volcanic aerosols is reassessed. Building on the work of Mann et al., estimates of volcanic forcing over the past millennium and a climate model of intermediate complexity are used to draw a diagram of El Niño likelihood as a function of the intensity of volcanic forcing. It is shown that in the co...

Internal Consultants as Agents of Change

Montane Meadows as Indicators of Environmental Change

We used a time series of satellite multispectral imagery for mapping and monitoring six classes of montane meadows arrayed along a moisture gradient (from hydric to mesic to xeric). We hypothesized that mesic meadows would support the highest species diversity of plants, birds, and butterflies because they are more moderate environments. We also hypothesized that mesic meadows would exhibit the...

Student publishing: future scholars as change agents

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to highlight undergraduates as an emergent student–scholar author group and to encourage institutions to take a future-oriented view, focusing greater attention to and support of undergraduate’s publishing. Design/methodology/approach – Highlighting benefits derived from undergraduate research (UR) experiences and publishing taken from the literature and e...