Ram Oren, Professor of Nicholas School of the Environment and Civil and Environmental Engineering
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.
| Office Location: | A319 Lev Sci Res Ctr |
| Office Phone: | (919) 613-8032 |
| Email Address: |  
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| Web Page: |
- 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
- MS Forest Ecology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, 1980
- Research Interests: Forest hydrology. Forest carbon balance. Interested in how forests might respond to climate change, and how they might affect climate change.
- Specialties:
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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
- Recent Publications
(More Publications)
- Lee, Xuhui; Goulden, Michael L.; Hollinger, David Y.; Barr, Alan; Black, T. Andrew; Bohrer, Gil; Bracho, Rosvel; Drake, Bert; Goldstein, Allen; Gu, Lianhong; Katul, Gabriel; Kolb, Thomas; Law, Beverly E.; Margolis, Hank; Meyers, Tilden; Monson, Russell; Munger, William; Oren, Ram; Kyaw Tha Paw U; Richardson, Andrew D.; Schmid, Hans Peter; Staebler, Ralf; Wofsy, Steven; Zhao, Lei, Observed increase in local cooling effect of deforestation at higher latitudes, NATURE, vol. 479 no. 7373 (November, 2011), pp. 384-387 [doi] [abs].
- Bertin, Sophie; Palmroth, Sari; Kim, Hyun S.; Perks, Mike P.; Mencuccini, Maurizio; Oren, Ram, Modelling understorey light for seedling regeneration in continuous cover forestry canopies, FORESTRY, vol. 84 no. 4 (October, 2011), pp. 397-409 [doi] [abs].
- Weng, Ensheng and Luo, Yiqi and Gao, Chao and Oren, Ram, Uncertainty analysis of forest carbon sink forecast with varying measurement errors: a data assimilation approach, JOURNAL OF PLANT ECOLOGY-UK, vol. 4 no. 3 (September, 2011), pp. 178-191 [doi] [abs].
- Drake, John E. and Gallet-Budynek, Anne and Hofmockel, Kirsten S. and Bernhardt, Emily S. and Billings, Sharon A. and Jackson, Robert B. and Johnsen, Kurt S. and Lichter, John and McCarthy, Heather R. and McCormack, M. Luke and Moore, David J. P. and Oren, Ram and Palmroth, Sari and Phillips, Richard P. and Pippen, Jeffrey S. and Pritchard, Seth G. and Treseder, Kathleen K. and Schlesinger, William H. and DeLucia, Evan H. and Finzi, Adrien C., Increases in the flux of carbon belowground stimulate nitrogen uptake and sustain the long-term enhancement of forest productivity under elevated CO(2), ECOLOGY LETTERS, vol. 14 no. 4 (April, 2011), pp. 349-357 [doi] [abs].
- Xiao, Jingfeng and Zhuang, Qianlai and Law, Beverly E. and Baldocchi, Dennis D. and Chen, Jiquan and Richardson, Andrew D. and Melillo, Jerry M. and Davis, Kenneth J. and Hollinger, David Y. and Wharton, Sonia and Oren, Ram and Noormets, Asko and Fischer, Marc L. and Verma, Shashi B. and Cook, David R. and Sun, Ge and McNulty, Steve and Wofsy, Steven C. and Bolstad, Paul V. and Burns, Sean P. and Curtis, Peter S. and Drake, Bert G. and Falk, Matthias and Foster, David R. and Gu, Lianhong and Hadley, Julian L. and Katulk, Gabriel G. and Litvak, Marcy and Ma, Siyan and Martinz, Timothy A. and Matamala, Roser and Meyers, Tilden P. and Monson, Russell K. and Munger, J. William and Oechel, Walter C. and Paw, U. Kyaw Tha and Schmid, Hans Peter and Scott, Russell L. and Starr, Gregory and Suyker, Andrew E. and Torn, Margaret S., Assessing net ecosystem carbon exchange of U.S. terrestrial ecosystems by integrating eddy covariance flux measurements and satellite observations, AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST METEOROLOGY, vol. 151 no. 1 (January, 2011), pp. 60-69 [doi] [abs].