Effects of Wildfire Disturbance on Water Budgets of Boreal Black Spruce Forests

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As the world's second largest terrestrial biome, the boreal forest plays a crucial role in the global water cycle. The goal of this project is to quantify and understand biological atmospheric losses of water from boreal forests recovering from natural wildfire disturbances. Biological control occurs because plants regulate the amount of water lost while photosynthesizing. Current models of evaporated water into the atmosphere from boreal forests are to simplistic because of a lack of data separating water lost from trees versus mosses, of which the former has markedly different controls than the latter over water loss. This project will enable the scientific and land management communities to assess how much complexity is required to adequately predict water losses from boreal forests that are experiencing and may continue to experience increased wildfire frequency. The project will serve as an ideal training ground for future scientists and land managers who work on systems that may modify the vegetation and thus water cycle by training post-docs, graduate and undergraduate students. The project will continue current efforts by the project leaders to integrate science and education through ties with local native peoples, high schools and community colleges.