In April, the Science Update Newsletter covers: a perspective piece in Ecology Letters, by NTL and other researchers, on the history and opportunities for the field of macrosystems ecology; a comparison of the impacts of grazing and fire history on plant water use and niche structure—from researchers at the KNZ LTER; in Ecosystem Health and Sustainability,… Read more »
Ecosystems ecology, landscape ecology, macrosystems ecology. It’s easy to think of these subdisciplines as big, bigger, biggest—but there’s a good deal more to the distinction than the scale of interaction they address. A recent “Idea and Perspective” article in Ecology Letters traces the origins and foundations of the field of macrosystems ecology, and advances a new hypothesis to describe how anthropogenic influences change the scales of ecological processes.
When one envisions a grassland community, imagery of tall grasses and bison often come to mind. Bison are an iconic species on the landscape, and they also impact the structure and function of the grassland ecosystem in important ways. Using natural variations in the abundance of oxygen isotopes, researchers at the Konza Prairie LTER found that grazing influenced plant water use through changes in diversity.
The concept of “disturbance” is a core theme of the LTER Network and central to ecological science. How does the idea of disturbance need to change when applied to the interactions of an urban metropolitan region rather than a “natural” system? Ecologists often consider the process of urbanization itself to be a form of disturbance, but that is a habit that has to change, say the authors of a recent paper in Ecosystem Health and Sustainability. People, technology, and infrastructure have to be defined as part of the system when studying cities, they say.
An LTER-NEON Synergies workshop, held March 29-31, explored the potential for strengthening and deepening the relationship between these two major research organizations and expanding ties to other networks such as the Critical Zone Observatory (CZO), Long Term Agricultural Research (LTAR) and Global Lake Ecological Observatory (GLEON) networks. The Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network and National… Read more »
In March, the Science Update Newsletter covers: Announcements of three new LTER sites and the NSF symposium a HFR-LTER paper in Ecology on the influence of excess nitrogen on fungal decomposition (spoiler — it slows decomposition) a BES-LTER paper in Landscape Ecology on evolving paradigms of urban ecology a KBS-LTER study, published in Royal Society Open Science, on… Read more »
Synopsis Even as sea-level rise, drought, and fire increase pressures on some ecological systems, others are benefitting from protection and restoration efforts. But some changes are not reversible. Long-term research employs observations of past changes, together with long-running experiments and modeling to understand the processes responsible for sustaining ecological functions. Drawing on concrete examples and… Read more »
In February, the Science Update Newsletter covers: an KBS-LTER paper in the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation on collaborative solutions to nitrogen runoff; a CCE-LTER paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on organic carbon sequestration at mesoscale ocean fronts; a BNZ-LTER study, published in Forest Ecology and Management, on the the influence of hare… Read more »
Fungi, often spotted in cold, damp locations, are responsible for decomposing the plant litter that falls to forest floors, enriching soils. Without fungi, dead plant material would inundate ecosystems and overwhelm other organisms. What would happen, then, if anthropogenic nitrogen altered the fungi’s ability to perform this vital ecosystem function? A recent study capitalized on a 28-year nitrogen enrichment experiment at the Harvard Forest LTER site in north-central Massachusetts to find out. As nitrogen inputs to a system increase, researchers found, fungal decomposition slowed.
Ecosystem services, such as the water cycle or flood control, support urban sustainability but are also impacted by the development of city-centers. Improving the sustainable design and management of cities, then, requires understanding how development affects such processes and services. A recent study contrasted two methods for measuring urban sustainability, ecology in cities and ecology of cities, and found that the integrative framework of ecology of cities more thoroughly addresses sustainability and its three components: the environment, economy, and society.
