Graduate researcher, Moriah Young, is a Ph.D. student in Dr. Phoebe Zarnetske’s lab at Michigan State University. The lab uses open top chambers (OTCs) to study how biotic interactions and climate change directly and indirectly affect community structure and function at the KBS LTER. Climate change is a pressing threat to ecosystems around the world. From warmer temperatures to more unpredictable rainfall, climate change has shown to have a myriad of effects on ecosystems. Most research has focused on direct effects of climate change on species. For example, how does warming
Studying climate change effects on plant traits: Reflections from an LTER Fellow
Graduate researcher, Kara Dobson, is a Ph.D. student in Dr. Phoebe Zarnetske’s Spatial and Community Ecology (SpaCE) Lab at Michigan State University. Her research focus is on the effects of climate warming and rainfall variability on plant traits. Climate change poses a looming threat to the functioning of ecosystems worldwide. Within ecosystems, my interest lies with plants and how they respond to stress caused by climate change. The way plants respond to stress varies widely and is dependent on things such as trait differences between plant species, differences in geographic location