By Yulanda Hwang and Tracey O’Malley
Dr.
Nancy Grulke, a Plant Ecophysiologist with the USDA Forest Service, presented
her research on Air Pollution and
Increased Forest Susceptibility to Wild Fires at SUNY-ESF on Tuesday, March
28, 2006 as part of SUNY ESF’s Women in Scientific and Environmental
Professions Spring Seminar Series. This event was sponsored by ESF’s Faculty of
Environmental and Forest Biology, Graduate Student Association, and the ESF
Women's Caucus.
Dr. Grulke discussed the effects
of air pollutants on forested ecosystems and their link to wildfire. Dr. Grulke
first discussed how the rapid increase in human population and the change in
land use from forest utilization to a management practice of fire suppression
had originally led to the ecosystem’s susceptibility to wildfires.
Attention
was then focused on regional ozone concentration and its relation to drought
stress and on tree responses. Environmental stressors alter temporal and
spatial variations in plant resources, acquisition, allocation, and
partitioning. Strong tropospheric oxides cause plants to retain needles for much shorter periods of time and thus reduce
root biomass. Dr. Grulke’s research proves that ozone exposure reduces
photosynthesis, increases drought stress, and therefore results in a loss of
roots and biomass. Whether under short, medium, or long-term ozone exposure,
metrics were persistent in predicting sluggish stomatal behavior. She concluded that sluggish stomatal response was
caused by an increasing vapor pressure deficient (VPD) with ozone exposure.
Dr.
Grulke suggests that air pollution increases drought stress, drought stress
increases tree susceptibility to beetle attacks, and these attacks make the
trees more susceptible to fires.
Dr. Grulke received her B.Sc.
in Botany from Duke University in 1978, and her Ph.D. in Botany from the University of Washington in 1983. She is currently a plant
ecophysiologist and Project
Leader, Atmospheric Deposition on Western Ecosystems, at the Pacific
Southwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service, in Riverside, California.
She specializes in effects of air pollutants, especially ozone concentration,
on tree responses and drought stress in forests of California.
