Stanley D. Smith

Professor

Ph.D. Arizona State University, Temple

Global Change and its Potential Effects on Dryland Ecosystems

stan.smith@unlv.edu

I am a plant physiological ecologist who has spent the past 25 years studying how desert plants adapt to the stressful environments that they occupy. Over the past 5 years, our lab group has concentrated on how global change factors, particularly elevated atmospheric CO₂, affect the structure and function of desert ecosystems. Our research spans a variety of scales, from membrane-level physiology to ecosystem processes. Most of our current research occurs at the Nevada Desert FACE Facility, a whole-ecosystem CO₂ manipulation experiment supported by the Department of Energy. We are also addressing how land use, nitrogen deposition, and altered precipitation patterns may affect desert ecosystems.

Selected Publications

• Barker DH, Stark LR, Smith SD et al. (2005) Evidence of recent drought-induced stress on biotic crust mosses of the Mojave Desert. Plant, Cell & Environment 28:939-947.
• Huxman TE, Smith MD, Fay PA, Knapp AK, Shaw MR, Loik ME, Smith SD et al. (2004) Convergence across biomes to a common rain-use efficiency. Nature 429:651-654.
• Nagel JM, Griffin KL, Huxman TE, Smith SD (2004) CO2 enrichment reduces the energetic cost of biomass construction in an invasive desert grass. Ecology 85:100-106.
• Hamerlynck EP, McAuliffe JR, McDonald EV, Smith SD (2002) Ecological responses of two Mojave Desert shrubs to soil horizon development and soil water dynamics. Ecology 83:768-779.
• Smith SD, Huxman TE et al. (2000) Elevated CO2 increases productivity and invasive species success in an arid ecosystem. Nature 408:79-82.
• Smith SD, Devitt DA, Sala A, Cleverly JR, Busch DE (1998) Water relations of riparian plants from warm desert regions. Wetlands 18:687-696.
• Smith SD, Monson RK, Anderson JE (1997) Physiological Ecology of North American Desert Plants. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.