Aim Recent meta-analyses have revealed that plant traits and their phylogenetic history influence decay rates of dead wood and leaf litter, but it remains unknown if decay rates of wood and litter covary over a wide range of tree species and across ecosystems. We evaluated the relationships between species-specific wood […]
Unprecedented rates of climate warming over the past century have resulted in increased forest stress and mortality worldwide. Decreased tree growth in association with increasing temperatures is generally accepted as a signal of temperature-induced drought stress. However, variations in tree growth alone do not reveal the physiological mechanisms behind recent […]
A comprehensive synthesis of data from empirically based published studies and a widely used stormwater best management practice (BMP) database were used to assess the variability in nitrogen (N) removal performance of urban stormwater ponds, wetlands, and swales and to identify factors that may explain this variability. While the data […]
Community genetics studies frequently focus on individual communities associated with individual plant genotypes, but little is known about the genetically based relationships among taxonomically and spatially disparate communities. We integrate studies of a wide range of communities living on the same plant genotypes to understand how the ecological and evolutionary […]
Arizona and New Mexico receive half of their annual precipitation during the summer monsoon season, making this large-scale rain event critical for ecosystem productivity. We used the monsoon rains to explore the responses of soil bacterial and fungal communities to natural moisture pulses in a semiarid grassland. Through 454 pyrosequencing […]
The linkages between fluvial geomorphology and aquatic ecosystems are commonly conceptualized as a one-way causal chain inwhich geomorphic processes create the physical template for ecological dynamics. In streams with a travertine step-pool morphology, however, biotic processes strongly influence the formation and growth of travertinedams, creating the potential fornumerous feedbacks.Herewetakeadvantage of […]
Overview Most global change research focuses on individual components, but the environment is changing in multiple ways simultaneously. The Jasper Ridge Global Change Experiment seeks to find out how these combined changes will affect ecosystems. Researchers tested the response of a California grassland to: climate change elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide […]
Ecoss researcher Michelle Mack is leading a $1 million NASA-funded project to measure the extreme fire activity in boreal forests and its effects on arctic tundra. Based on the number of acres burned, 2015 is shaping up to be the second most extreme fire year during the past decade in North […]
Ecoss studies the microbial communities of the human body and the implications for disease including STDs and HIV, as well as analyzing the microbial community using bioinformatics, community ecology theory and Bayesian statistical modeling.
We study antibiotic resistance in human pathogens, genetic sampling of meat for antibiotic resistance, methods to develop a molecular database for strains of E. coli in urinary tract infections, and food safety of kosher vs non-kosher chicken.