Kerry Byrne GDPE PhD Defense
Wednesday, April 11, 2012, 09:00 AM
Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Room B224

Precipitation and temperature are recognized as important drivers of plant community structure and function across ecosystems worldwide. These abiotic factors have been shown to affect many important properties of plant communities, including net primary production, species richness, and plant physiognomic types. Yet recent predictions of an increase in mean global temperature and changes in precipitation timing and quantity have the potential to alter terrestrial communities in novel ways by changing both the strength of abiotic controls on ecosystem processes as well as changing biotic interactions such as predation, competition, and trophic interactions in plant communities. Using the central grassland region of North America as my study region, my dissertation examined how predicted changes in climate will affect soil water availability, net primary production, and species composition and community structure at study sites located in the shortgrass steppe and mixed grass prairie. The results of my dissertation demonstrate that ecosystems located within the same biome may respond differently to similar changes in precipitation and temperature, primarily due to differences in ecosystem structure, interspecific competition, and patterns of soil water availability. The differences in community responses between my two sites highlight the importance of multi-site studies to refine our knowledge of the mechanisms and generalities of community response to climate change at the biome level.

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Event Contact: Jeri Morgan can be reached at (970) 491-4373

Sponsored by Graduate Degree Program in Ecology