Julio L. Betancourt

CP-LUHNA Author: Fire-Southern Oscillation relations in the Southwestern United States

U.S. Geological Survey
BRD/Desert Laboratory
Bldg 803, Tumamac Hill, 1675 W. Anklam Rd
Tucson, AZ 85745

Telephone: (520) 670-6821 ext 109

Email: jlbetanc@usgs.gov

Current Academic Position:

University of Arizona's Desert Laboratory

Research Interests

A paleoecologist, Julio Betancourt is interested in how climate variability affects vegetation on the time scales from years to millennia. He has studied El Niño effects on southwestern fire and flood regimes, and the influence of drought on the regional demography of pinyon-juniper woodlands. He is part of a group developing a model linking climate and plant distributions in the Sonoran Desert. Julio also continues to expand the packrat midden record, one of the world's richest archives of plant and animal remains from the last 40,000 years.

Colorado Plateau Publications:

Allen, C. D., Betancourt, J. L. and Swetnam, T. W. 1998. Landscape changes in the southwestern United States: Techniques, long-term data sets and trends. Pp. 71-84 In: Sisk, T. D., editor. Perspectives on the land use history of North America: A context for understanding our changing environment. Biological Science Report USGS/BRD/BSR-1998-0003. U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division, Reston, VA.

 

Allen, C. D., Betancourt, J. L. and Swetnam, T. W. Land use history of North America -(LUHNA): The paleobotanical record. <http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/impacts/biology/paleobotany/> 2/1/97.

 

Allen, C. D., Betancourt, J. L. and Swetnam, T. W. LUHNA Pilot Project - Southwestern United States. <http://biology.usgs.gov/luhna/southwest/southwest.html> 2/1/95.

 

Anderson, R. S., Betancourt, J. L., Mead, J. I., Hevly, R. H. and Adam, D. P. 2000. Middle- and Late Wisconsin paleobotanic and paleoclimatic records from the southern Colorado Plateau, USA. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 158: 25-43.

 

Betancourt, J. L. 1984. Late Quaternary plant zonation and climate in southeastern Utah. Great Basin Naturalist 44: 1-35.

 

Betancourt, J. L. 1987. Paleoecology of pinyon-juniper woodlands: Summary. Pp. 129-139 In: Proceedings of the pinyon-juniper conference. General Technical Report 215. USDA.

 

Betancourt, J. L. 1990. Late Quaternary biogeography of the Colorado Plateau. Pp. 259-293 In: Betancourt, J. L., Devender, T. R. V. and Martin, P. S., editors. Packrat middens: The last 40,000 years of biotic change. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

 

Betancourt, J. L. 1995. Long and short-term climatic influences on southwestern shrublands. Pp. 5-9 In: Barrow, J. R., MacArthur, E. D., Sosebee, R. E. and Tausch, R. J., editors. Proceedings: Symposium on shrubland ecosystem dynamics in a changing climate, Las Cruces, NM, 1995 May 23-25. General Technical Report INT-GTR-338. USDA Forest Service, Intermountain Research Station, Ogden, UT.

 

Betancourt, J. L. and Davis, O. K. 1984. Packrat middens from Canyon de Chelly, northeastern Arizona: Palaeoecological and archaeological implications. Quaternary Research 21: 52-64.

 

Betancourt, J. L. and Turner, R. M. 1993. Tucson's Santa Cruz River and the arroyo legacy. University of Arizona, Tucson.

 

Betancourt, J. L. and Van Devender, T. R. 1981. Holocene vegetation in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Science 214: 656-658.

 

Betancourt, J. L., Dean, J. S. and Hull, H. M. 1986. Prehistoric long-distance transport of construction beams, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. American Antiquity 51: 370-375.

 

Betancourt, J. L., Devender, T. R. V. and Martin, P. S. 1990. Introduction. In: Betancourt, J. L., Devender, T. R. V. and Martin, P. S., editors. Packrat middens: The last 40,000 years of biotic change. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

 

Betancourt, J. L., Devender, T. R. V. and Martin, P. S., editors. 1990. Packrat middens: The last 40,000 years of biotic change. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ.

 

Betancourt, J. L., Pierson, E. A., Aasen-Rylander, K., Fairchild-Parks, J. A. and Dean, J. S. 1993. Influence of history and climate on New Mexico pinyon-juniper woodlands. Pp. 42-62 In: Aldron, E. F. and D.W.Shaw, editors. Managing pinyon-juniper ecosystems for sustainability and social needs: Proceedings of the symposium, Santa Fe, NM, April 26-30. General Technical Report RM-236. USDA Forest Service, Fort Collins, CO.

 

Betancourt, J. L., Schuster, W. S., Mitton, J. B. and Anderson, R. S. 1991. Fossil and genetic evidence for the age and origin of a pinyon pine (Pinus edulis) isolate. Ecology 72: 1685-1697.

 

Betancourt, J. L., Van Devender, T. R. and Martin, P. S. 1983. Fossil packrat middens from Chaco Canyon, New Mexico: Cultural and ecological significance. Pp. 207-217 In: Wells, S. G., Love, D. W. and Gardner., T. W., editors. Chaco Canyon country: A field guide to the geomorphology, quaternary geology, paleoecology, and environmental geology of northwestern New Mexico. American Geomorphological Field Group.

 

Betancourt, J. L., Van Devender, T. R. and Martin, P. S. 1990. Synthesis and prospectus. Pp. 435-448 In: Betancourt, J. L., Van Devender, T. R. and Martin, P. S., editors. Packrat middens: The last 40,000 years of biotic change. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

 

Connin, S. L., Betancourt, J. and Quade, J. 1998. Late Pleistocene C4 plant dominance and summer rainfall in the southwestern United States from isotopic study of herbivore teeth. Quaternary Research 50: 179-193.

 

Gottfried, G. J., Swetnam, T. W., Allen, C. D., Betancourt, J. L. and Chung-MacCoubrey, A. L. 1995. Pinyon-juniper woodlands. Pp. 95-132 In: Finch, D. M. and Tainter, J. A., editors. Ecology, diversity, and sustainability of the Middle Rio Grande Basin. General Technical Report RM-GTR-268. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Fort Collins, CO.

 

Pendall, E., Betancourt, J. L. and Leavitt, S. W. 1999. Paleoclimatic significance of dD and d13C values in pinon pine needles from packrat middens spanning the last 40,000 years. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 147: 53-72.

 

Samuels, M. L. and Betancourt, J. L. 1982. Modeling the long-term effects of fuelwood harvest on pinon-juniper woodlands. Environmental Management 6: 505-515.

 

Smith, F. A. and Betancourt, J. L. 1998. Response of bushy-tailed woodrats (Neotoma cinerea) to late Quaternary climatic change in the Colorado Plateau. Quaternary Research 50: 1-11.

 

Smith, F. A., Betancourt, J. L. and Brown, J. H. 1995. Evolution of body size in the woodrat over the past 25,000 years of climate change. Science 270: 2012-2014.

 

Spaulding, W. G., Betancourt, J. L., Cole, K. and Croft, L. 1990. Fossil packrat middens: Their nature and methods of analysis. Pp. 59-84 In: Betancourt, J. L., Devender, T. R. V. and Martin, P. S., editors. Packrat middens: The last 40,000 years of biotic change. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

 

Swetnam, T. W. and Betancourt, J. L. 1990. Fire-Southern Oscillation relations in the southwestern United States. Science 249: 1017-1021.

 

Swetnam, T. W. and Betancourt, J. L. 1992. Temporal patterns of El Niño/Southern Oscillation - wildfire teleconnections in the southwestern United States. Pp. 259-270 In: Diaz, H. F. and Markgraf, V., editors. Historical and paleoclimatic aspects of the Southern Oscillation. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.

 

Swetnam, T. W. and Betancourt, J. L. 1998. Mesoscale disturbance and ecological response to decadal climatic variability in the American Southwest. Journal of Climate 11: 3128-3147.

 

Swetnam, T. W. and Betancourt, J. L. Mesoscale Ecological Responses to Climatic Variability in the American Southwest. <http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/impacts/biology/fires_SOI/> 2/1/99.

 

Swetnam, T. W., Allen, C. D. and Betancourt, J. L. 1999. Applied historical ecology: Using the past to manage the future. Ecological Applications 9: 1189.

 

Van de Water, P. K., Leavitt, S. W. and Betancourt, J. L. 1994. Trends of stomatal density and 13C/12C ratios of Pinus flexilis needles during last glacial-interglacial cycle. Science 264: 239- 243.

 

Van Devender, T. R., Thompson, R. S. and Betancourt, J. L. 1987. Vegetation history of the deserts of southwestern North America; the nature and timing of the late Wisconsin-Holocene transition. In: Ruddiman, W. F. and Wright, H. E., editors. The geology of North America: Vol K-3, North America and adjacent oceans during the last deglaciation. Geological Society of America, Boulder, CO.

 

Webb, R. H. and Betancourt, J. L. 1990. The spatial and temporal distribution of radiocarbon ages from packrat middens. Pp. 85-103 In: Betancourt, J. L., Devender, T. R. V. and Martin, P. S., editors. Packrat middens: The last 40,000 years of biotic change. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.