Michael Bliss Singer
Welcome to my Ecohydrology research page!
Here I outline my research on the topic of ecohydrology. I also provide info on existing funding, collaborators, and publications arising from this work.
Premise: The dynamics of climatic expression within the water cycle vary by region and across hydroclimatic gradients. The video below shows climatic fluctuations within a several-month period at a Rhone River riparian forest site in SE France. Water availability in the subsurface responds to variations in temperature, winds, precipitation, humidity, etc. Thus, there is a time signature of climate-controlled water availability to plants. This signature may be interrogated through detailed measurement of water source variation in the subsurface and analysis of how such variations are recorded within annual rings of forest trees.
Growing season variability in water fluxes and climatic variables in a riparian floodplain forest along the Rhone River in SE France.
Challenge: To determine how climate dynamics affect water availability to forests and water use by trees, to decipher the preserved signatures of these dynamics within tree rings, and to generalize the ecohydrological responses to fluctuations or trends in water availability.
Research Highlights: To date, we have developed new methods to interrogate the subannual variability of water use by riparian trees by micro-slicing annual tree rings, analyzing each slice for its isotopic composition, and modeling (back-calculating) the isotopic signature of source water used by the tree. We are applying this methodology to two species with contrasting rooting depths in the Rhone River basin in SE France along a strong hydroclimatic gradient. We have also been working to characterize the spatial and temporal variability in potential water sources contributing to root zone moisture through measurements and physically based modeling.
Funding
US Department of Defense (Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program), Understanding and assessing riparian habitat vulnerability to drought-prone climate regimes on Department of Defense bases in the Southwestern USA, RC18-C2-1006, 2018-2022, M. Singer (PI), D. Roberts, K. Caylor, J. Stella.
National Science Foundation (Hydrologic Sciences), Impacts of Dynamic, Climate-Driven Water Availability on Tree Water Use and Health in Mediterranean Riparian Forests, EAR #1700555, 2017-2020, M. Singer (PI), K. Caylor, J. Stella
National Science Foundation (Geography and Spatial Sciences),Linking basin-scale, stand-level, and individual tree water stress indicators for groundwater-dependent riparian forests in multiple-use river basins
Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
PhD Studentships to Chris Sargeant and Cristina Evans.
Various small grants to study ecohydrologic interactions in riparian forests of the Rhône R. Basin from (2011-2016):
OHM-CNRSThe Carnegie TrustSAGESRégion Rhône Alps
Research Collaborators
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS-France)
Dept of Forest and Natural Resources Management, State University of New York (SUNY)
School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews
School of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of St Andrews
Dept of Geography, University of California Santa Barbara
Centre Européen de Recherche et d'Enseignement des Géosciences de l'Environnement (CEREGE-France)
Dept of Geography, University of Calgary
Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley
ETH Zurich & Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL
ETH Zurich
Bren School of ESM, University of California Santa Barbara
Publications
*Sargeant, C.I., Singer, M.B., Vallet-Coulomb, C.; Toolkit for detecting historical water use by forest trees. In Review
*Evans, C., Dritschel, D., Singer, M.B.; Modelling subsurface hydrology in floodplains. In Review
*Sargeant, C.I., Singer, M.B. (2016), Sub-annual variability in historical water source use by Mediterranean riparian trees, Ecohydrology, 9(7):1328–1345, doi:10.1002/eco.1730. (pdf) (html)
The paper above received the Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe Publication Award for the Best Publication in Ecohydrology in 2016.
Singer, M.B., *Sargeant, C., Piegay, H., *Riquier, J., Wilson, R.J.S., *Evans, C.M. (2014), Floodplain ecohydrology: Climatic, anthropogenic, and local physical controls on partitioning of water sources to riparian trees, Water Resources Research, doi:10.1002/2014WR015581. (pdf) (html)
Singer, M.B., Stella, J.C., Dufour, S., Piegay, H., Wilson, R.J.S., *Johnstone, L. (2013), Contrasting water-uptake and growth responses to drought in co-occurring riparian tree species, Ecohydrology, 6(3):402-412, doi: 10.1002/eco.1283. (pdf) (html)