Kristina Young

I'll be expanding my dryland ecosystem ecology research but also maintaining space for big picture thinking on drylands. To that end, I've started a Substack to compile thoughts related to dry landscapes. open.substack.com/pub/drylands...

2026 is going to be a big year! I'll be starting (tomorrow!) as an Assistant Professor of Climate Change Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Meet the 2026 team for the ESA Southwest Chapter! 🌵☀️ We're super excited to serve our community and support your science in any way we can! Got questions or ideas? Send them our way! Stay tuned for introduction posts of each of our amazing new leaders!

Buried in the soil or drifting on the wind, Valley fever fungus spreads further around the Southwest “The West’s Lyme disease” gets less attention as cases rise – even while drastically undercounted. Climate change and land development are worsening the picture.

Here's a great new article from a Stanford University publication about the growing threat of Valley fever in the West. Several of my colleagues and I were interviewed for it.
andthewest.stanford.edu/2025/buried-...

Grateful to see this beautiful #biocrust on a trip through Canyonlands National Park in the Maze District. It is always a gift to see such intact crust in these remote places

Attention publishers: Announcing the Guidelines for Indigenous Data Governance in Scholarly Publishing

Join this session to learn more about the recently published Guidelines and how you can help!

nisoplusglobalonline.cadmore.media/Home

Happy to share a new lab @jgrbiogeo.bsky.social paper: "Drought Response in Three Conifer Species Detected by Sap Flow and Proximal Thermal Remote Sensing" led by the amazing Daphna Uni w/ @mostafaj.bsky.social others @uarizona.bsky.social agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

Navigating the possibilities and pitfalls of biocrust recovery in a changing climate Biological soil crusts are complex communities composed of lichens, mosses, bacteria, and cyanobacteria that create a living skin on the soil surface across drylands worldwide. Although small in size...

New paper out in the American Journal of Botany with some of my science role models, @michalaphillips.bsky.social @ecology-awesome.bsky.social @kristinayoung.bsky.social and also Cara Lauria and Ana Giraldo-Silva.

bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

Happy to share our recent paper using Ecological Site Groups to better understand plant community changes &their relationship with wildfire & drought on the Colorado Plateau. Part of a fantastic project working with land managers & scientists alike.

iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

Happy to share a new lab @newphyt.bsky.social
paper, Fangyue Zhang et al., "Temporal repackaging of rainfall magnifies negative impacts of vapor pressure deficit on semiarid ecosystem productivity" @uarizona.bsky.social
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/KYZDXV...

Nurse plant shading is more important than soil fertility for dryland plant recruitment and diversity The significant influence of shading highlights the role of environmental factors in shaping plant communities of this dryland system, while the evidence of seed depletion combined with the influence....

Fantastic paper by Scott Ferrenberg & others exploring the role of nurse plant shading vs soil fertility for dryland plant recruitment and diversity👇 besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Grazing Modulates the Multiscale Spatial Structure of Dryland Vegetation

🔗 buff.ly/AZABRtK

Don't miss it! 👇!

Way excited for Savannah's defense next week!

If you love biogeochemistry and thinking about potential for soil carbon management, mark your calendar for Monday, July 28th @ 11:00 AM MDT (or stop by campus if you're in Moab 😉)

Public Zoom Link: usu.zoom.us/j/8144285688...

Who is doing #biocrust work in the alpine in North America? Let's talk! I want more field sites here 👇🤩

When we tell people that #biocrust can be a dominant form of ground cover in drylands, it can be hard to picture. Here's a perfect example from Canyonlands National Park in Utah showing how extensive biocrust cover can be!

Navigating the possibilities and pitfalls of biocrust recovery in a changing climate Biological soil crusts are complex communities composed of lichens, mosses, bacteria, and cyanobacteria that create a living skin on the soil surface across drylands worldwide. Although small in size...

Our new review is out led by @michalaphillips.bsky.social examining #biocrust recovery amidst climate change 👇

bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Climate change could shift the geographical distribution of biocrusts in the Qaidam Basin 📊🌏

Uses high-resolution biocrust maps to establish a monitoring & management baseline. Results underscore the importance of considering spatial heterogeneity 🌐🧪

🔗 doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Land is life.

But with 2 billion hectares of land degraded globally, restoring ecosystems & building drought resilience has never been more urgent.

On #DesertificationandDroughtDay find out how we can restore land.

Together, we can be #UNited4land: www.unep.org/gef/focal-ar...

@unccd.bsky.social

"Now, there is only a trickle of water following the driest winter in decades."

Rippling effects of #globalchange in #drylands

This blend of models and field experiments to optimize restoration outcomes can help save money and increase positive results towards land degradation neutrality and achieving sustainable development goals. @restorationecology.bsky.social @mduniway.bsky.social Nick Webb, Brandon Edwards

Optimizing the effectiveness of connectivity modifiers to reduce dryland degradation Dryland degradation from unsustainable land use and increasing aridity often manifests as bare, interconnected areas that facilitate the loss or redistribution of resources (soil, seeds, and nutrient...

Our newly published paper was really exciting to work on because it uses models to help determine how effective a restoration action might be at meeting a goal (in our case wind erosion reduction) BEFORE costly efforts are implemented onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Thank you, Fernando!

Biocrust Mosses and Cyanobacteria Exhibit Distinct Carbon Uptake Responses to Variations in Precipitation Amount and Frequency This study investigates carbon uptake in biological soil crusts (biocrusts) under varying precipitation regimes, testing pulse-response strategies in moss- and cyanobacteria-dominated crusts. The res...

Nice new paper out by @kristinayoung.bsky.social This was one of her dissertation chapters and some offshoot work from our fungal loop project.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Voices: Research on dust in Utah has never been more important. Trump’s proposed cuts put our economy and public health at risk. “The loss of this science doesn’t just mean fewer data points,” writes Kristina Young. “It means fewer tools to protect water supplies, fewer insights to guide wildfire mitigation and fewer answers wh...

Excellent piece by @kristinayoung.bsky.social on the critical threat facing the USGS's Southwest Biological Science Center. We must rally and fight this senseless attack on science!!

Thanks for helping spread the word about this!

The Desert Laboratory: Carnegie Science's Pioneering Role in American Ecology Carnegie Science's Desert Laboratory in Tucson, Arizona served as an intellectual hub where pioneering ecologists helped transform the emerging discipline of ecology from descriptive natural history i...

For those interested in the history of ecology: a nice Earth Day piece on the scientific legacy of the Desert Laboratory in Tuscon and the role that Carnegie Science played in supporting early ecological research. 🧪🌐🌍🌎🌏🌵
carnegiescience.edu/news/desert-...

Science is still happening! Hopeful that our new paper can serve as a resource for those seeking or making digital seed-based restoration tools: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Send me a message if you need access @coleoptara.bsky.social @restorecal.bsky.social @magdagarbowski.bsky.social

Biocrusts—tiny communities of fungi, bacteria, and algae on dryland soils—have fascinated scientists for decades A new review in @cambridgeup.bsky.social #CPDrylands by Rosentreter & Eldridge explores key trends in biocrust research in North America doi.org/10.1017/dry....