Abstract: Access to soil water is the most common limiting factor for vegetation growth and productivity across the planet. Plants have thus developed multiple competitive strategies to acquire water through dynamic root profiles, changing the conductivity of root and stem material and uptake of dew and fog waters across the leaf interface. I will discuss our field observations and modeling approaches to study the dynamics of plant water use across major biomes and how these water foraging strategies influence vulnerability and resilience of ecosystems to stressors such as drought and warming.

Bio: Max Berkelhammer's research focuses on the interactions between the land surface and the atmosphere with an emphasis on how climate change impacts the global carbon and water budgets. The work involves field investigations into surface fluxes as well as reconstructions of past land surface processes using paleoclimate proxies to study Earth system dynamics prior to strong anthropogenic influences. In addition, his research group uses satellite data and climate models to provide global context for the intensive site-level studies. Max's current projects are heavily focused on interactions between vegetation and hydrology in ecosystems ranging from cities and alpine forests to agricultural and prairie lands of the midwestern US. These projects include the development of novel instruments and modeling tools to develop new theories on the way vegetation can act to both modulate the climate and be affected by the climate. Prior to this, Max has led research far afield including multiple field seasons at Summit Station on top of the Greenland Ice sheet and the Dry Valleys of Antarctica looking at interactions between ice sheets and the atmosphere in a warming world. Max received his PhD in Earth Sciences from the University of Southern California and completed post-doctoral research at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at University of Colorado. Before pursuing a career in research, he worked as a high school teacher; he maintains an active interest in science education and was awarded both a Silver Circle award from UIC and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Fellowship for Excellence in Education. He has over 50 peer reviewed publications and has sustained continuous external funding from the NSF and DOE since becoming a PI. Max is currently a lead PI for one of the Department of Energy's Urban Integrated Field Lab programs called "Community Research on Climate and Urban Science (CROCUS)". The aim is to create new insights on urban climate challenges that will inform future actions for mitigating and adapting to climate change at the street, neighborhood, and regional levels.