SGER: Revealing Controls on Post-Fire Ecosystem Carbon Fluxes

California State L A University Auxiliary Services Inc., Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

The Sky Oaks Field Station (California) is one of the longest-running FLUXNET, Ameriflux, and SpecNet research sites, heavily instrumented to be able to measure carbon, water and energy fluxes in two stands of chaparral, one 11 years of age and one over 100 years old. The 6 July 2003 Coyote wildfire destroyed all of the instrumentation at both sites. This proposal seeks funding to immediately replace a "tram system" for optical and thermal sampling that will allow for a quantitative assessment of the controls on carbon flux immediately after fire. In addition, funding will permit installation of a wireless sensor network and the ability to conduct spatially-explicit sampling of biomass, species composition, pigment composition, water status and carbon fluxes via respiration and photosynthesis. Recovery of vegetation is expected to be rapid, and immediate deployment of a tram system and of the wireless sensor network allows a unique opportunity to initiate a long-term study to evaluate controls on carbon, water, and energy flux in a chaparral ecosystem beginning soon after fire.