Alison Macalady

I am a dendrochronologist and geographer investigating factors that affect tree mortality during droughts of the past century. Climate-induced tre mortality is an emerging global phenomenon that could have wide-ranging consequences for forest composition, structure and function. Warm drought and associated eruptions of bark beetles recently resulted in extensive tree mortality in piñon-juniper woodlands of the southwestern United States. However, the predisposing factors underlying such "die-offs" remain unclear, hindering efforts to model tree mortality and forest dynamics under future climate change.