Many northern forests are limited by nitrogen (N) availability, slight changes in which can have profound effects on ecosystem function and the activity of ectomycorrhizal (EcM) fungi. Increasing N and phosphorus (P) availability, an analog to accelerated soil organic matter decomposition in a warming climate, could decrease plant dependency on […]
Concerns about rising greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations have spurred the promotion of no-tillage practices as a means to stimulate carbon storage and reduce CO2 emissions in agro-ecosystems. Recent research has ignited debate about the effect of earthworms on the GHG balance of soil. It is unclear how earthworms interact with […]
Water drives the functioning of Earth’s arid and semiarid lands. Drylands can obtain water from sources other than precipitation, yet little is known about how non-rainfall water inputs influence dryland communities and their activity. In particular, water vapor adsorption – movement of atmospheric water vapor into soil when soil air […]
Native soil carbon (C) can be lost in response to fresh C inputs, a phenomenon observed for decades yet still not understood. Using dual-stable isotope probing, we show that changes in the diversity and composition of two functional bacterial groups occur with this ‘priming’ effect. A single-substrate pulse suppressed native […]
The impacts of climate extremes on terrestrial ecosystems are poorly understood but important for predicting carbon cycle feedbacks to climate change. Coupled climate–carbon cycle models typically assume that vegetation recovery from extreme drought is immediate and complete, which conflicts with the understanding of basic plant physiology. We examined the recovery […]
Phylogeny is an ecologically meaningful way to classify plants and animals, as closely related taxa frequently have similar ecological characteristics, functional traits and effects on ecosystem processes. For bacteria, however, phylogeny has been argued to be an unreliable indicator of an organism’s ecology owing to evolutionary processes more common to microbes such as […]
We’ve got your number: Tracing the source of invasive Japanese beetles March 9, 2016 Sonya Daw news.nau.edu Like a Southern drawl popping up on the West Coast, our accents mark us as newcomers. With time they fade, leaving only traces of our past in the occasional slip of a word. […]
Dam decommissioning projects, although numerous, rarely include complete sets of data before and after restoration for evaluating the ecological consequences of such projects. In this study, we used a before-after control-impact (BACI) design to assess changes in leaf litter decomposition and associated macroinvertebrate and fungal decomposers following dam decommissioning in […]
Invasive, non-native plant species can alter soil microbial communities in ways that contribute to their persistence. While most studies emphasize mycorrhizal fungi, invasive plants also may influence communities of dark septate fungi (DSF), common root endophytes that can function like mycorrhizas. We tested the hypothesis that a widespread invasive plant […]
Restoration of native fish to freshwater habitats often requires nonnative fish removal via chemicals such as antimycin A. Despite widespread use, there are limited field studies quantifying the effects of antimycin A on aquatic macroinvertebrates. We studied the immediate and short-term effects of antimycin A on macroinvertebrates during a fish […]