Through the efforts of Dr. Alexander Wait, professor of biology, Missouri State University’s Bull Shoals Field Station (BSFS) has joined the national drought network, which is examining large sections of the continental United States that are currently undergoing varying degrees of drought.

This collaborative research team will examine tree mortality from drought across multiple systems that no research group could tackle alone. Individuals or research groups will be taking small, manageable sets of identical field measurements in their tree-dominated ecosystems.

Wait’s contribution will be data from both burned and unburned forests at BSFS. He will meet with other network scientists at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America.