Anna is an ecologist focused on landscape-scale vegetation dynamics. Her research investigates the impacts of human land use, climate change, and environmental disturbances on dryland ecosystems.
Anna studies the effects of domestic livestock grazing, drought, climate and soil conditions, oil and gas development, and invasive plant species on native plant communities of the Colorado Plateau and on rangelands across the western US. Her work involves a wide variety of skills, from field botany to remote sensing to data management and analysis.
Education and Certifications
M.S. Natural Resources and Environmental Science, University of Nevada Reno, 2019.
Thesis: “Watershed-scale controls on riparian vegetation distribution and dynamics: Impacts of geomorphology, climate, and disturbance"
B.S. Biology, Agricultural Sciences, Cornell University, 2012.
Science and Products
Digital Soil Mapping: New Tools for Modern Land Management Decisions
The field of digital soil mapping has bridged the classic theories of soil science into the modern computing age to produce high resolution predictive soil maps. This body of work utilizes classic soil factorial theory (soil = f[climate, organisms, relief (topography), parent material, time] + ɛ, or ‘clorpt’). The clorpt framework has been approximated using various environmental spatial data...
Long-Term Vegetation Change on the Colorado Plateau
The Colorado Plateau, centered around the four corners area of the Southwest, and includes much of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, is a large and important component of U.S. drylands. This important home to mountains, desert basins, dramatic canyons, and arid woodlands and grasslands is also one of North America’s most rapidly warming hot spots, with rates of warming of up to 2-3° C...
Southwest Energy Development and Drought (SWEDD)
Deserts of the southwestern US are replete with oil and gas deposits as well as sites for solar, wind, and geothermal energy production. In the past, many of these resources have been too expensive to develop, but increased demand and new technologies have led to an increase in exploration and development. However, desert ecosystems generally have low resilience to disturbance. More frequent...
Colorado Plateau Native Plant Program Field Trial Study
In the southwest US, monsoon precipitation increases sharply along a northwest to southeast gradient. Pleuraphis jamesii or galleta grass, is an important C4 grass species that spans across this large range in precipitation pattern. In this study we are assessing the ability of galleta grass to adapt to changes in the seasonality of rainfall (termed “plasticity”). In the fall of 2014, we...
Colorado Plateau Extreme Drought in Grassland Experiment (EDGE)
In drylands, short-term extreme droughts can have profound ecosystem effects, depending on the timing (seasonality) of drought and the sensitivities of the dominant plants and plant functional types. Past work suggests that cool season drought may disproportionately impact regionally important grass and shrub species. In this study, we are examining the impacts of extreme seasonal drought on...
Science and Products
- Science
Digital Soil Mapping: New Tools for Modern Land Management Decisions
The field of digital soil mapping has bridged the classic theories of soil science into the modern computing age to produce high resolution predictive soil maps. This body of work utilizes classic soil factorial theory (soil = f[climate, organisms, relief (topography), parent material, time] + ɛ, or ‘clorpt’). The clorpt framework has been approximated using various environmental spatial data...Long-Term Vegetation Change on the Colorado Plateau
The Colorado Plateau, centered around the four corners area of the Southwest, and includes much of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, is a large and important component of U.S. drylands. This important home to mountains, desert basins, dramatic canyons, and arid woodlands and grasslands is also one of North America’s most rapidly warming hot spots, with rates of warming of up to 2-3° C...Southwest Energy Development and Drought (SWEDD)
Deserts of the southwestern US are replete with oil and gas deposits as well as sites for solar, wind, and geothermal energy production. In the past, many of these resources have been too expensive to develop, but increased demand and new technologies have led to an increase in exploration and development. However, desert ecosystems generally have low resilience to disturbance. More frequent...Colorado Plateau Native Plant Program Field Trial Study
In the southwest US, monsoon precipitation increases sharply along a northwest to southeast gradient. Pleuraphis jamesii or galleta grass, is an important C4 grass species that spans across this large range in precipitation pattern. In this study we are assessing the ability of galleta grass to adapt to changes in the seasonality of rainfall (termed “plasticity”). In the fall of 2014, we...Colorado Plateau Extreme Drought in Grassland Experiment (EDGE)
In drylands, short-term extreme droughts can have profound ecosystem effects, depending on the timing (seasonality) of drought and the sensitivities of the dominant plants and plant functional types. Past work suggests that cool season drought may disproportionately impact regionally important grass and shrub species. In this study, we are examining the impacts of extreme seasonal drought on... - Data
- Publications