Species diversity, community dynamics, and environmental change: lessons from high-elevation mountain systems
January 16, 2014 @ 04:00 pm
to 05:00 pm
Katharine Suding, University of California, Berkeley
108 Wartik
Event Website
A major challenge in predicting how environmental change will affect species diversity is how to incorporate community dynamics - for instance, whether we need to explicitly consider species interactions in biodiversity forecasts. I will share our current work aimed at better understanding this challenge in high-elevation ecosystems in the Rocky Mountains. First, based on long-term factorial experiments manipulating warming, snow, and nitrogen, I will show evidence that plant species interactions (indirect effects mediated by the abundance of dominant species) are important in determining diversity responses to environmental change. Then, based on coexistence theory, I will propose a mechanistic approach to predict which species may be most responsive to indirect effects compared to direct effects of environmental change. Lastly, I will bring in the importance of plant-soil interactions - and examine how plant species responses might be more sensitive to interactions with the soil microbial community rather than with interactions with other plants, particularly in extreme environments such as the case of alpine plant species moving uphill to track climate change.
Contact
Denise Finney
dmf272@psu.edu
814-863-7661