wilcoxlab

Our most recent paper talks about soil infiltration and erosion in Caatinga – a dry tropical forest biome situated in North East Brazil. Results from rainfall simulations over forests of different ages were compared for infiltration and erosion. In addition, beerkan methods was used to estimate infiltration curves and hydraulic conductivity for different ages and vegetation cover. Ksat determined from lab and beerkan methods were found to be consistently increasing with time since it was left for recovery or regrowth of forest.

Field work for this study was carried out over the summer of 2015 by Pedro Leite, Brad Wilcox and their colleagues Eduardo Santos, Eduardo Souza and Rafael Oliveira at Federal Rural University of Pernambuco in Recife (UFRPE, Brazil). The study is part of an ongoing collaborative project with UFRPE and Wilcox lab at Texas A&M.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eco.1910/full

 

A new study published in Water Resources Research has found out that killing or removal of Salt Cedar,a species introduced in U.S. in early 1800s, from riparian regions do not increase stream flows. This is a groundbreaking result as it challenges the existing assumption that Salt Cedar reduce stream flows because of increased transpiration rates.

Dr. Alyson McDonald, who is the lead author on the study, is a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service range specialist at Fort Stockton and is also a former Phd student of Dr. Wilcox.

The team of scientists who worked on this study include Dr. Alyson McDonald, Dr. Bradford Wilcox and Dr. Georgianne Moore, department of ecosystem science and management, Texas A&M University, College Station; Dr. Charles Hart, Dow AgroSciences, Stephenville; Dr. Zhuping Sheng, AgriLife Research, El Paso; and Dr. Keith Owens, department of natural resource ecology and management, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater.