A professor in the University of Wyoming Department of Botany and director of the Global Vegetation Project recently received a new grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to investigate how drought and fire are reshaping forests across the western United States.
Daniel Laughlin has received an NSF grant for his project titled “Fire and Water in the West: Trait-based Demographic Dynamics of Forest Communities.” The grant total is $998,971, with $692,182 awarded to UW and the remainder to the University of Nevada, Reno. The grant began July 1 and continues through June 30, 2029.
Severe droughts and increasingly destructive wildfires have become defining challenges for Western communities. While many tree species have evolved to withstand these stresses, intensifying climate conditions are now pushing them beyond their limits. Laughlin’s research will identify key adaptations—such as bark thickness, rooting depth, and xylem vulnerability—that determine which species will persist and which may decline.
“In the West, we can’t stop talking about how dry it is or about how smoky the skies are. Drought and fire are reshaping forested landscapes across Wyoming and every other Western state,” Laughlin says. “I am excited about this project because it will fill gaps in knowledge about how trees have adapted to drought and fire, so that we can get ahead of the changes by anticipating them and develop more successful restoration strategies.”
Laughlin is collaborating with Bob Shriver, an assistant professor of plant ecology and population biology at the University of Nevada-Reno, to compile the largest open-access database of adaptive traits of more than 100 trees in the western United States.
The researchers will travel to every Western state to sample living trees in dozens of experimental forests managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service and other nature preserves. The project also involves greenhouse and laboratory experiments to quantify how trees cope with water stress and respond to experimental burning.
“In Wyoming, we will sample trees in the Medicine Bow Mountains, the Black Hills region, and other as-yet-to-be-determined sites,” Laughlin says.
The integration of trait data with demographic data from the national forest inventory will allow Laughlin and his team to predict how forests will change over time and why many fail to recover after fire under dry conditions.
Laughlin says he is recruiting UW graduate and undergraduate students to assist with the grant, and a full-time laboratory technician will be hired to measure traits in the greenhouse and in the field.
In addition to advancing foundational ecological science, the project will provide critical guidance for forest managers and create new K–12 teaching resources through the Global Vegetation Project. Specifically, Laughlin says his team will collaborate with the Science and Mathematics Teaching Center at UW to develop curricular resources for K-12 teachers using the Global Vegetation Project that are aligned with standards in more than 40 states based on the Framework for K-12 Science Education.
This story was originally published on UW News.
