While today's drought is on our minds, a look back to the great drought of 2000-2004 (and even into 2008 in parts of the West) provides a perspective to consider. And, if climate warming continues to wear away at our atmosphere, there may be "megadroughts" in our future. All this is the meat of a "Natural Geoscience" report co-authored by AmeriFlux former science director Beverly Law, an Oregon State University College of Forestry professor of global change biology and terrestrial systems.

Meet Michael P. Nelson, Ruth H. Spaniol Chair of Renewable Resources and Lead Principal Investigator for the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest. When Michael talks about his work, he mentions carcasses and cadavers to a startling degree — startling because Nelson is not a physician or a veterinarian or even a biologist. He’s a philosopher.

Researchers at Oregon State University, US, have analysed over 500 years' worth of nitrate and ammonium data from a number of streams across the US. "Much of what we know about changes in stream water quality comes from studies of basins that have been affected by human activity," explained Alba Argerich, a postdoctoral research associate in Forest Ecosystems and Society and the study's lead author.

Michael Nelson, Ruth H. Spaniol Chair of Renewable Resources and Lead Principal Investigator for the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest, co-wrote a recent NY Times opinion piece about the future of the wolves in Isle Royale National Park.  This park, located in Lake Superior, consists of 134,000 acres of boreal and hardwood forests where a life-or-death struggle between wolves and moose has been the subject of the world’s longest study of predators and their prey, now in its 55th year.