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Climate change alters ecosystem and community properties and although inter-annual variation occurs year-round (Dominguez et al. 2012), most research on the response of ecosystems to climate change occurs during the primary growing season (e.g. Knapp et al. 2002) or uses annual averages that homogenize across seasons (e.g. Knapp & Smith 2001, Hsu et al. 2012)…. Read more »

Objectives We are requesting funds to assemble a working group of scientists (primarily LTER and ILTER) with interest and experience in designing and conducting climate change experiments. Our goal is to continue to design a network-level experiment, proposed previously as part of the LTER Decadal Planning process, to manipulate rainfall (i.e., impose drought) in terrestrial… Read more »

Goals: Coastal ecosystems are highly valued as key economic and cultural assets for society. They provide a wealth of ecosystem functions including storm protection, nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, water filtration, detrital processing, fisheries, food web support, biodiversity and wildlife habitat. Rapidly growing populations and expanding development are intensifying pressures on these valuable ecosystems. Sea-level rise… Read more »

Background Two separate working groups at the 2012 ASM provided opportunities for students to discuss their socio-ecological research experiences, and to identify best practices that meet the challenges of this research agenda. The GSS working group, “Sharing Stories from Outside the Box,” was an opportunity for students to speak openly about the particular challenges of… Read more »

Introduction and Goals Ecologists have been tasked with predicting how communities will respond to altered environmental conditions in the face of global change. This task, however, is complicated by the inherent complexity of many ecological systems. Indeed, within a system the species composition of experimental replicates does not always respond to resource manipulations in similar… Read more »

Background and Rationale Aquatic ecosystems in urban environments are highly modified by human activity, engineering, and design. These systems are critical in delivering ecosystem services to urban residents, who comprise over 80% of the US population. This synthesis working group builds upon two impromptu meetings of interested persons held at the 2012 ASM[1]. Based upon… Read more »