Newsletter 4
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Message from the Director Water & NEWS or the past three and one- Astronomy half years, we have worked Collaborations with Fdiligently to evaluate how we Oman Underway manage and utilize the apparatus eter Smith, professor of lunar and planetary sciences, and that is Biosphere 2 (B2) and to Hassan Hijazi, director of external affairs at Biosphere streamline operations to take us to a 2, recently returned from the Sultanate of Oman after VOLUME 1-6 SPRING 2011 higher and more productive level of P receiving a personal invitation from the Omani government doing science. This included finding to explore collaborations between the University of Arizona ways to optimize the strengths and and Oman in the fields of water and astronomy. This was Travis Huxman, skills of our current faculty and staff Director, Biosphere 2 Smith’s second visit to Oman; during his first visit last year, he and align those with the resources & UA Science: Flandrau prepared a UA MARS exhibit at Bait Al Baranda Museum, that exist through UA Science. I which was popular with hundreds of visitors. During the visit 1 am pleased to announce that we are unfolding a strategic in January 2011, Smith and Hijazi visited a number of villages business model that uses a community-based approach and to explore the Falaj System, which is the oldest irrigation situates Biosphere 2 at the nexus of collaborative research engineering system in the region and in the Sultanate. A falaj and outreach associated with environmental research. is a gently sloping channel that taps groundwater or springs One recent and prominent change was the formation of a and has brought water to the villages for domestic, religious centralized business office that will oversee and coordinate and agricultural use for more than 2,000 years. the complex business functions for several units within UA The first step towards the international collaborations Science, including Biosphere 2, UA Science: Flandrau, between the University of Arizona and Oman is an exhibit and SAHRA. One of the many critical functions of this and program that will open next winter at Biosphere 2. The office will be to serve as the administrative hub for all exhibit will replicate key components of the Falaj System, grants processing associated with these diverse units. To and will be accompanied by lectures and seminars on Oman’s oversee this new office, we hired a fantastic new manager historic water infrastructure and management, as well as the of business and finance, Rhonda Dwyer, who is working deeply rooted social and cultural components of the falaj, and hard to effect the changes needed to create a successful and the connection to the University of Arizona. n thriving center for business operations. We are also working closely with the College of Science to strengthen our business development, community relations, and economic development opportunities in the region. Other recent changes include new management of facilities, staff and operations at B2 as well as the expansion of our educational programs and outreach efforts associated with UA Science. I want to thank all of the faculty and staff involved in this exciting new business model for their hard work, commitment, support and for taking Biosphere 2 to better n and better places. His Excellency Ali Al-Abri, Undersecretary of Water Resources Affairs and members of the Regional Municipalities and Water Resources. INSIDE THIS ISSUE PAGE 2: Landscape PAGE 7: UA Outreach: PAGE 10: Biosphere 2 PAGE 11: High School Evolution Observatory Sense of Place Institutes Unveils New OmniGlobe Students Conduct Research (LEO) at Critical Step Cross-Programming in the Exhibit. Inside Biosphere 2. Toward Renovation. College of Science. Featured Research "Mini-LEO" Prototype is a Critical Step Toward Major Renovation ecently, visitors to Biosphere considerations of this project great insight, the sensors represent 2 have been able to observe require careful selection of the grind only a fraction of the thousands Rprototype experiments that of soil; the “mini LEO” scaled that will be in place in the larger are helping us finalize the design soil box has enabled scientists to experiment. Computer engineers of the soon-to-be constructed observe soil-water interactions in have successfully used this prototype Landscape Evolution Observatory various soils with different degrees system to design a robust cyber- (LEO). The full project involves the of compaction. Early soils proved infrastructure that will allow us to construction of three two-million too coarse, allowing water to flow collect, process and archive data pound artificial landscapes, and is through them very quickly, but so that scientists from around the scheduled to begin soon. Consisting finer soils and machine compaction world can, in real time, view LEO of a soil box built at a 1:15 scale has produced soil characteristics data. All of these activities will pale of the full structures, this box has much closer to the criteria necessary in comparison to the physical size allowed scientists at Biosphere 2 to for the LEO landscapes. Analysis of, and huge amount of data that test a wide range of environmental of these soil-water interactions is will flow from, the final LEO project sensors in order to select the optimal performed using 30 sensors located landscapes, but ensuring we can instrumentation for the larger inside and outside the test box. do our science at a smaller scale is project. Visitors are able to observe While data from these sensors offers critical to future success! n indoor rainstorms as water is applied to various soils from an artificial rain system. Less visible to the public has been the progress made with the programming and data acquisition 2 systems under development by computer engineers. But that will change soon, as a new interactive display will be unveiled that will allow visitors to view real-time data collected by the sensors buried in VOLUME 1-6 the SPRING soil. 2011 The soil to be used in the LEO project is a volcanic tephra (coarse ash) from Flagstaff, Arizona. It is ground to a specific grain-size distribution using a plate grinder at the quarry. The interdisciplinary Dean Neevel and Brendan Murphy prepare to lower a vibrating-plate compactor into the “mini-LEO”. Research technician Brendan Murphy prepares potential LEO project soil material for hydrologic testing in the “mini-LEO” apparatus. View of the LEO project space at Biosphere 2. Grass Invasion, Climate Change and Desertification Linked any arid regions around on this invasion process. Using the communities under moisture stress the world—including the Biosphere 2 as an adaptive tool to conditions, simulating a global MNorth American deserts— control experimental parameters and change-type drought. Biosphere 2 are experiencing rapid vegetation simulate future warming scenarios, enables the researchers to undertake transformations caused by the the ongoing interdisciplinary extensive manipulative experiments invasion of exotic grasses. These research project involves scientists by eliminating many of the vegetation changes in turn alter from the University of Arizona’s confounding factors that make such ecosystem processes, in particular Biosphere 2, the School of Natural experiments challenging under field the cycling of water and carbon. Resources and the Environment, and conditions. Further, climate models predict the Department of Soil, Water and future warming and recurring Environmental Sciences. They are Preliminary findings indicate that droughts, which may accelerate investigating the impact of droughts the predicted warming scenarios land degradation or desertification and rising temperatures on native may enhance the obliteration processes, having direct impacts on and invasive grass communities and of desert landscapes by exotic food security and environmental how these communities partition grasses. The invasive grasses can quality. Thus, understanding resources (soil moisture, nutrients) perform better and out-compete the ecohydrological processes in these changing environmental native grasses more efficiently in accompanying these vegetation conditions. For the past eight a warmer environment. However, shifts (e.g. buffel grass invasion months, the research group has scenarios involving a combination VOLUME 1-6 SPRING 2011 in the Sonoran desert) in the been monitoring the physiological of drought and warming may prove context of rising temperatures and (photosynthesis, respiration, water- fatal to both native and invasive recurrent droughts is fundamental use) responses of both above- and grasses, with drought-induced to sustainable management of these below-ground tissues of native grass mortality occurring at much ecosystems as the climate changes. and invasive grass communities by shorter time scales under warmer conditions. The findings of these using leaf gas-exchange analyzers 3 At Biosphere 2, assistant research and root observation cameras experiments will provide valuable professor Sujith Ravi is investigating (‘mini-rhizotrons’). Further, they input to ongoing modeling studies the ecohydrological implications of are monitoring the physiological and to the design of large-scale field buffel grass invasion and the impact responses, resource use patterns, experiments in the future. n of future climate-change scenarios and mortality of these plant Assistant research professor Sujith Ravi B2 research technicians Ashley Weide and Maggie Heard taking pictures of the grass roots using a measuring respiration