Modifications to list of syndromes

I reviewed Mark's list of synodromes and added one biological syndrome, the well-documented drought die-back of woody plants. I think the drought/Ips mortality is probably the most importnat climate change impact in the P-J woodlands and Juniper savannahs. Also I made a slight change to the coppicing syndrome, which allows for the possibility of deposition of sand form offsite (i think this is a major control of crust succession), rather than just redistribution within site.

B5.Woody plant retraction: Potentially rapid die-off of woody overstory plants such as pinyon or juniper accompanying global change type drought coupled with warm temperatures. This may be associated with outbreaks of pest species such as Ips bark beetles in the case of Pinus. A pinyon-juniper woodland can shift to a juniper woodland (also shifting a mixed ectomycorrhizal-arbuscular mycorrhizal soil community to one solely composed of arbuscular mycorrhizas), and a juniper savannah can shift to a grassland. Severity of impacts tends to be patchy and localized, reaching up to 100% at hectare scales. Reversal of both transitions may be persistent. In the case of Pinyon pine die-off, reestablishment of ectomycorrhizal associations and avian seed dispersers may be major barriers. Juniper die-off seems to be linked to non-manageable factors such as heatload due to sun exposure and soil texture; only a reversal of climate trends over a long time scale is likely to reverse this transition. Supporting literature: Haskins, KE, Gehring, CA. 2005. Evidence for mutualist limitation: the impacts of conspecific density on the mycorrhizal inoculum potential of woodland soils. Oecologia 145:123-131. Gitlin, A.R., Sthultz, C.M., Bowker, M.A., Stumpf, S., Paxton, K.L., Kennedy, K., Munoz, A., Bailey, J.K., and T.G. Whitham. 2006. Mortality gradients within and among dominant plant populations as barometers of ecosysetm change during extreme drought. Conservation Biology 20:1477-1486, Mueller, RC, Scudder, CM, Porter, ME, Trotter, RT III, Gehring, CA, and TG Whitham. 2005. Differential tree mortality in response to severe drought: evidence for long-term vegetation shifts. Journal of Ecology 93: 1085-1093. Bowker, MA, Munoz, AA, Martinez T, Lau, MK. 2010. [title in flux]. Unpublished manuscript. Breshears, D. D., N. S. Cobb, P. M. Rich, K. P. Price, C. D. Allen, R. G. Balice, W. H. Romme, J. H. Kastens, M. L. Floyd, J. Belnap, J. J. Anderson, O. B. Myers, and C. W. Meyer. 2005. Regional vegetation die-off in response to global-change-type drought. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 102:15144-15148.


A3. Coppiced: Characterized by significant soil redistribution within a site or from outside of a site (and may be accompanied by deflation), resulting in the development of coppice dunes. Most likely on Psamments or other soils with fine sandy surface textures - particularly in presence of persistent woody plants that capture eolian sediment and result in the concentration of soil-surface disturbances in interspaces among shrubs. Reversal requires mechanical redistribution of soils and soil resources.