Ram Oren
Professor (primary appt: Nicholas School of the Environment)
With his graduate students, Dr. Oren quantifies the components of water flux in forest ecosystems and the influence of certain biotic and abiotic factors on water flux. Climate variability, including variations in air temperature, vapor pressure deficit, incoming radiation and soil moisture, and environmental change, including elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide, affect the intra- and inter-annual patterns and amounts of water used by forest ecosystems, and their spatial distributions. These variations influence the temporal and spatial partitioning of incoming radiation between latent and sensible heat. Changes in water use by forests, resulting from abiotic pressures, trigger biotic feedback responses, which may often cancel or amplify abiotic impacts. Using a local mass balance approach and detailed measurements of water flux and driving variables in the soil, plants, and the atmosphere, in forests from Brazil to Alaska, Dr. Oren evaluates the likely responses of different forest ecosystems to environmental change. Using the Free Air CO2 Enrichment facility, together with several AmeriFlux sites, Dr. Oren also quantify the carbon and water balance in forests under current atmospheric CO2 concentration and concentration projected in future atmosphere, and evaluate the effect of soil fertility on carbon sequestration and water yield in pine forests.
Contact Information:
- Office Location: A319 Lev Sci Res Ctr
- Office Phone: (919) 613-8032
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Email Address:
Education:
| PhD Physiological Ecology | Oregon State University, Corvallis | 1984 |
| MS Forest Ecology | Oregon State University, Corvallis | 1980 |
| BS Forest Resource Management | Humboldt State University, California | 1978 |
Curriculum Vitae
Specialties:
global change ecology
biogeochemistry
ecology
forest management and silviculture
terrestrial ecosystems
wetland ecology
Awards, Honors, and Distinctions:
- Fellow, The Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture & Forestry
- Nicholas Professor of Earth System Science, Duke University
Courses Taught:
- ENVIRON 898.01 - PROGRAM AREA SYMPOSIUM
- ENVIRON 898.03 - PROGRAM AREA SYMPOSIUM
Representative Publications: (More Publications)
- Drake, J. E. and Oishi, A. C. and Giasson, M. -A. and Oren, R. and Johnsen, K. H. and Finzi, A. C., Trenching reduces soil heterotrophic activity in a loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) forest exposed to elevated atmospheric {[}CO2] and N fertilization, AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST METEOROLOGY, vol 165 (2012), pp. 43-52 [doi] [abs].
- Dieleman, Wouter I. J. and Vicca, Sara and Dijkstra, Feike A. and Hagedorn, Frank and Hovenden, Mark J. and Larsen, Klaus S. and Morgan, Jack A. and Volder, Astrid and Beier, Claus and Dukes, Jeffrey S. and King, John and Leuzinger, Sebastian and Linder, Sune and Luo, Yiqi and Oren, Ram and de Angelis, Paolo and Tingey, David and Hoosbeek, Marcel R. and Janssens, Ivan A., Simple additive effects are rare: a quantitative review of plant biomass and soil process responses to combined manipulations of CO2 and temperature, GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY, vol 18 no. 9 (2012), pp. 2681-2693 [doi] [abs].
- Katul, Gabriel G. and Oren, Ram and Manzoni, Stefano and Higgins, Chad and Parlange, Marc B., EVAPOTRANSPIRATION: A PROCESS DRIVING MASS TRANSPORT AND ENERGY EXCHANGE IN THE SOIL-PLANT-ATMOSPHERE-CLIMATE SYSTEM, REVIEWS OF GEOPHYSICS, vol 50 (2012) [doi] [abs].
- Novick, K. A. and Katul, G. G. and McCarthy, H. R. and Oren, R., Increased resin flow in mature pine trees growing under elevated CO2 and moderate soil fertility, TREE PHYSIOLOGY, vol 32 no. 6, SI (2012), pp. 752-763 [doi] [abs].
- Bauerle, William L. and Oren, Ram and Way, Danielle A. and Qian, Song S. and Stoy, Paul C. and Thornton, Peter E. and Bowden, Joseph D. and Hoffman, Forrest M. and Reynolds, Robert F., Photoperiodic regulation of the seasonal pattern of photosynthetic capacity and the implications for carbon cycling, PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, vol 109 no. 22 (2012), pp. 8612-8617 [doi] [abs].