Life Sciences Commons^™

Shifts In Plant Functional Composition Following Long-Term Drought In Grasslands, Robert J. Griffin‐Nolan, Dana M. Blumenthal, Scott L. Collins, Timothy E. Farkas, Ava M. Hoffman, Kevin E. Mueller, Troy W. Ocheltree, Melinda D. Smith, Kenneth D. Whitney, Alan K. Knapp

Biological, Geological, and Environmental Faculty Publications

1. Plant traits can provide unique insights into plant performance at the community scale. Functional composition, defined by both functional diversity and community-weighted trait means (CWMs), can affect the stability of above-ground net primary production (ANPP) in response to climate extremes. Further complexity arises, however, when functional composition itself responds to environmental change. The duration of climate extremes, such as drought, is expected to increase with rising global temperatures; thus, understanding the impacts of long-term drought on functional composition and the corresponding effect that has on ecosystem function could improve predictions of ecosystem sensitivity to climate change.

2. We experimentally …

Ecosystem Regime Change Inferred From The Distribution Of Trace Metals In Lake Erie Sediments, Fasong Yuan, Richard Depew, Cheryl Soltis-Muth

Biological, Geological, and Environmental Faculty Publications

Many freshwater and coastal marine ecosystems across the world may have undergone an ecosystem regime change due to a combination of rising anthropogenic disturbances and regional climate change. Such a change in aquatic ecosystems is commonly seen as shifts in algal species. But considerably less detail is known about the eutrophication history in terms of changes in algal productivity, particularly for a large lake with a great deal of spatial variability. Here we present an analysis of trace metals (Cu, Ni, Cd, and Pb) on a sediment core recovered from Lake Erie, off the Vermilion coast of northern Ohio, USA, …

Chemical And Isotopic Evaluation Of Sulfur Sources And Cycling In The Pecos River, New Mexico, Usa, Fasong Yuan, Bernhard Mayer

Biological, Geological, and Environmental Faculty Publications

The use of stable isotopes in studies of watershed biogeochemical processes has increased greatly throughout the last several decades. Much of the sulfur cycling research has addressed the influence of changes in atmospheric acid deposition on sulfur dynamics in temperate ecosystems. Little is known about sulfur cycling in dryland ecosystems such as those in the American Southwest. To identify the sources and assess the cycling of sulfur in dryland ecosystems, chemical and isotopic compositions of water were measured on samples collected from the Pecos River (New Mexico, USA) during a reconnaissance survey in spring 2010. Based on the chemical and …