Plant species are characterized along a spectrum of isohydry to anisohydry depending on their regulation of water potential (?), but the plasticity of hydraulic strategies is largely unknown. The role of environmental drivers was evaluated in the hydraulic behavior of Larrea tridentata, a drought-tolerant desert shrub that withstands a wide […]
Variation in life-history strategies can affect metapopulation dynamics and consequently the composition and diversity of communities. However, data sets that allow for the full range of species turnover from colonization to extinction over relevant time periods are limited. The late Quaternary record provides unique opportunities to explore the traits that […]
Ecologists increasingly use hierarchical Bayesian (HB) models to estimate group-level parameters that vary by, for example, species, treatment level, habitat type or other factors. Group-level parameters may be compared to infer differences among levels. We would conclude a non-zero pairwise difference, separately, for each pair in the group, when the […]
Plant communities typically exhibit lagged responses to climate change due to poorly understood effects of colonization and local extinction. Here, we quantify rates of change in mean cold tolerances, and contributions of colonization and local extinction to those rates, recorded in plant macrofossil assemblages from North American hot deserts over […]
Predicting future changes in ecosystem services is not only highly desirable but is also becoming feasible as several forces (e.g., available big data, developed data assimilation (DA) techniques, and advanced cyber-infrastructure) are converging to transform ecological research into quantitative forecasting. To realize ecological forecasting, we have developed an Ecological Platform […]
Land managers frequently apply vegetation removal and seeding treatments to restore ecosystem function following woody plant encroachment, invasive species spread, and wildfire. However, the long-term outcome of these treatments is unclear due to a lack of widespread monitoring. We quantified how vegetation removal (via wildfire or management) with or without […]
The Tundra Trait Team (TTT) database includes field-based measurements of key traits related to plant form and function at multiple sites across the tundra biome. This dataset can be used to address theoretical questions about plant strategy and trade-offs, trait?environment relationships and environmental filtering, and trait variation across spatial scales, […]
Greenhouse gas emissions from thawing permafrost in arctic ecosystems may amplify global warming, yet estimates of the rate of carbon release, and the proportion of carbon released as methane (CH4) or carbon dioxide (CO2), have a high degree of uncertainty. There are many areas where no measurements exist, and few […]
Extracellular enzymes catalyze rate-limiting steps in soil organic matter decomposition, and their activities (EEAs) play a key role in determining soil respiration (SR). Both EEAs and SR are highly sensitive to temperature, but their responses to climate warming remain poorly understood. Here, we present a meta-analysis on the response of […]
Former Ecoss Postdoctoral researcher Natasja van Gestel, now at Texas Tech University, and Bruce Hungate and Paul Dijkstra from ECOSS are using deglaciated area in Antarctica to investigate plants and microbial responses to warming. Two graduate students will be integral to the success of the study: Kelly McMillen (Texas Tech […]