Last week the remnants of Hurricane Simon passed through Tucson. The city received just an inch of rain, but the story was different up in the mountains. The summit of Mt. Lemmon, rising almost 7000′ above the city, recorded five inches of precipitation in a single day. The reason is orographic lift – mountains force…

One of best known patterns in ecology is the latitudinal gradient in biodiversity. Near the poles there tend to be fewer species than in the tropics. Here are two examples from my own travels. First, a moist lowland forest on the Pacific slope of Costa Rica (9°N latitude). In a hectare of forest you can…

I spent the better part of September inside of a cloud, not moving. Recording data for a seedling census isn’t the most glamorous job, especially in the mountains when the cold wet autumn air inevitably finds its way through all the layers you might be wearing. Here is Dovrefjell, home to my friend Kristin Odden…

PLoS Biology just published my paper on how the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs affected plants. You can read the paper here (Plant Ecological Strategies Shift Across the Cretaceous–Paleogene Boundary), or read an excellent popular summary here (A Plant’s Guide to Surviving the Chicxulub Impact). There’s also media coverage in Newsweek, The Daily Mail, and…