A recent study from KBS students suggests that climate warming can offset insect damage in tall goldenrod, potentially making this already aggressive prairie plant even more dominant as temperatures rise. Climate change may reduce yields of crops like corn and soybeans, but it can also give some plants an edge. That’s one of the takeaways of a recent study of tall goldenrod, a common wildflower that runs rampant in fields across its native range in North America and other parts of the world where it has been introduced. Many goldenrod plants are pocked by tumorlike growths, called
Graduate research from the KBS LTER reveals plant traits that predict ecosystem stability
Researchers showed that functional traits of plants can help explain why some grasslands remain productive over many years, but are less useful in understanding how ecosystems respond to individual disturbances. As climate change brings more frequent droughts and increasingly unpredictable weather, one of the biggest questions facing scientists is how ecosystems will respond. While some ecosystems recover quickly from environmental stress, others struggle to remain productive over time. Understanding what makes ecosystems resilient is becoming increasingly important as managers work to
Graduate research from the KBS LTER highlights the role of drought in altering plant-environment interactions
Through an experiment that simulates future climate change conditions within the KBS LTER, researchers found that drought strongly affects the chemical compounds released by goldenrod, suggesting that climate change could significantly influence how ecosystems function. Though you might not be able to see it with the naked eye, plants are constantly interacting with their environment. One way they do this is through the release of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) – chemical signals that help them communicate and react to both living and non-living factors around them. These VOCs form the
Graduate research from the KBS LTER reveals how nematodes contribute to soil food web stability in droughts
Using the Rainfall Exclusion Experiment (REX) within the KBS LTER, researchers found that nematode communities are more stable in early successional landscapes than agricultural ones during drought. This study highlights the importance of plant diversity for resilient soil ecosystems under environmental change. As farmers adopt new strategies to cope with increasingly extreme weather events, such as heatwaves and droughts, understanding the mechanisms behind resiliency in agricultural systems is critical. While it’s well-established that drought harms crop production, less is known about h
Collaboration between Michigan farmers and LTER researchers provides insights into soil health at the margins of agricultural fields
The multi-year collaboration aims to leverage farmer knowledge and experience and combine it with soil sampling to determine how soil conditions are impacted by being on the edge of agricultural fields, leading to useful management recommendations for creating productive farmlands. Intensive agriculture requires widespread adoption of conservation practices to mitigate loss of ecosystem services. Planting native perennial vegetation at the edge-of-fields (EOF) is a conservation practice shown to improve soil health and protect water quality. The deep root systems and stiff stems of
How farmers use and manage nitrogen: Reflections from an LTER fellow
Each year the KBS LTER program awards two graduate students with summer research fellowships. Here Riva Denny describes the research her 2016 summer fellowship supported. Riva is a PhD student working with Dr. Sandra Marquart-Pyatt in the Department of Sociology, Michigan State University. ~~ As a sociology student who studies agriculture and the environment my research looks a little different from most of the research done at the Kellogg Biological Station Long-term Ecological Research (KBS LTER) site. I study the social aspects of nitrogen fertilizer