Julio L. Betancourt

Professor, Geography & Regional Development

Senior Scientist, National Research Program, Water Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey

Ph.D., 1989, Geosciences, University of Arizona
M.S., 1984, Geosciences, University of Arizona
B.A., 1974, Anthropology, University of Texas

Phone: (520) 670-6821 ext. 107
Fax: (520) 670-6806
E-Mail: jlbetanc@usgs.gov

Desert Laboratory, Tumamoc Hill
1675 W. Anklam Rd.
Tucson, AZ 85745
USA
Desert Lab

Personal home page

Research

I am a broadly-trained scientist based at the Desert Laboratory, a 352-ha reserve with a 100-yr legacy in environmental research about deserts. The main objective of my research is to determine how climate variability and land use affect terrestrial ecosystems on spatial and temporal scales critical for evolutionary and ecological processes, and for the management of water and other natural resources. I am interested in integrating diverse fields and techniques to develop innovative ways of understanding the history, rates, dynamics and causes of ecosystem change. These studies are critical to establish baselines for detecting and forecasting change, for anticipating and documenting the effects of droughts, floods and wildfires on western watersheds, and for developing rational approaches to managing water and other natural resources.

My close colleagues, students and I have analyzed a wide variety of historical evidence, including instrumental hydrological and climatic data, long-term vegetation plots, tree rings, fossil rodent middens, morphological, geochemical and genetic analyses of fossil plant and animal remains, shoreline lake evidence and alluvial stratigraphy. In North America, my field sites have encompassed the Chihuahuan, Mojave and Sonoran Deserts, the Colorado Plateau, and the central and southern Rockies. In South America, I have field sites in four countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru), with recent field campaigns concentrated in northern Chile's Atacama Desert.

Project Involvement

• Patterns, Sources and Impacts of Decadal-to-Multidecadal Hydroclimatic Variability in the Western U.S. (w/ Greg McCabe, USGS, Steve Gray, NRC Postdoc, and Steve Jackson, Univ. of Wyoming)
• Influence of climate and landscape structure on Holocene plant migration in the western U.S. (w/ Steve Jackson, Jodi Norris and Mark Lyford, University of Wyoming, and Steve Gray, NRC post-doc).
• Environmental history of the Atacama Desert (w/ Jay Quade, Univ. of Arizona, Claudio Latorre Universidad Catolica, Antonio Maldonado, Univ. de la Serena, Mathias Vuille, Univ. Massachussetts, Raina Maier & Julie Neilson, Univ. of Arizona)
• Molecular Phylogeography of the Desert Woodrat (w/ Hendrik Poinar, McMaster Univ., Jim Patton, UC-Berkeley, Felisa Smith, Univ. of New Mexico)
• Packrat Middens from Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Monuments (Felisa Smith, Univ. of New Mexico and Camille Holmgren, Cal State-Long Beach)
• Organization of a National Phenology Network (w/ Mark Schwartz, UW-Milwaukee, and others; http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/Geography/npn/)
• Buffelgrass Eradication Demonstration and Outreach Project, Eastern Pima County (w/Travis Bean, Univ. of Arizona, and others, http://www.paztcn.wr.usgs.gov/buffelgrass)