When
May 4th, 2016
3:00-4:00pm
ENR2 Room S107
Speaker: Chris Guiterman, winner of the 2015 McGinnies scholarship
Abstract:
The vast, semi-arid Navajo Nation is home to the largest Native American population in the US and includes over 5.4 million acres of forest and woodland, larger than any National Forest across the conterminous states. These forests provide essential ecosystem services for the Diné, including drinking water and stable soil, and provide the means for a multitude of traditional practices. People have occupied and used Navajo forests for thousands of years, including as the primary timber source for construction of the iconic great houses in Chaco Canyon. Now, climate change poses a considerable challenge to these forests, along with their ecosystem services and lifeways. The effects of climate change are being seen across the region as increasing drought-related tree die-offs and hotter, more severe wildfires are leading to major forest losses in some areas. Climate projections reveal that average conditions for forests in the next several decades could be as bad as the worst drought episodes of the last millennium. Tasked with managing for resilience and sustainability, the Navajo Forestry Department has partnered with us to assess the vulnerabilities of their forests. We have begun by collecting forest structure and tree-ring data across the Chuska Mountains and Defiance Plateau, a combined 600,000 ac ponderosa pine-dominated landscape. Our collaborations seek to understand the environmental and human history of the forest ? through the lenses of fire regimes, growth and mortality, and tree sensitivity to climate variation ? in order to elucidate patterns of change. These data will be incorporated into NFD decision making and management plans by providing perspective on how increasing temperatures leading to longer, deeper, and more frequent droughts might be manifested across this large, heterogeneous, and vital landscape.
Bio:
Chris Guiterman is a PhD candidate in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment and Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. He has a B.A. in Geology from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and an M.S. in Forestry from the University of Maine in Orono. Prior to entering forestry school, Chris worked for three years as a Forest Service contractor in the Pacific Northwest installing Forest Inventory and Analysis plots on six National Forests. He came to the University of Arizona in 2010 to study dendroecology with Tom Swetnam and Don Falk. Chris quickly began collaborations in several areas, including sourcing beams from Chaco Canyon great houses, reconstructing fire-climate relationships in Siberia, and his dissertation studies of forest dynamics in northern Arizona and New Mexico. Chris?s dissertation is aimed at understanding how people and climate affect forest processes over centuries, with the goal of enhancing management in the face of future climate change. In this effort, Chris fostered a science-management partnership with the Navajo Forestry Department in 2013, with whom he is working collaboratively to address NFD concerns over the vulnerabilities of Navajo forestlands to climate change. Chris?s doctoral work has been supported by grants from the National Park Service, US Geological Survey, and the Navajo Nation, as well as a CLIMAS Climate & Society fellowship and an EPA STAR fellowship.