EAGER: Collaborative Research: Environmental Variability at Dryland Ecotones

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Arid and semi-arid ecosystems cover more-than 40% of the land surface on Earth and are expanding in their global extent. These ecosystems are expected to experience changes associated with increases in average annual temperatures and increases in the variability of precipitation. However, science currently lacks both the data and understanding to link consequences of average temperatures and precipitation variance over space, time, and levels of biological organization from individual organisms to whole ecosystems. In 2015, one of the oscillations that control large-scale weather patterns, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, switched from a cool / dry phase to a warm / wet phase. That switch suggests that during the next 2 decades the American southwest will experience an increase in annual precipitation. Ecological responses during the anticipated transition to a wetter period will provide important opportunities to increase scientific understanding of the impacts of variation in precipitation on dryland ecology, including species traits, species diversity and interactions, and ecosystem processes. By unifying these diverse subfields the researchers will be poised to obtain new insights into the mechanisms that link ecological response to environmental variance across scales. This EAGER proposal will support education and outreach activities at all levels of learning, reaching Native American and Hispanic communities. The research team will maintain ties with land managers that can use the data from this research in making management decisions. The EAGER research will include the collection of continuous data on meteorology, plant species biomass, and counts of grasshopper, small mammal, and bee species. The research team will assemble existing and newly collected data into a Trait Database, continue experiments involving removals of foundation plant species, and carry out biome-specific experiments involving fires, biocrust disturbance, and chronic nitrogen deposition. The data will be used in forward modeling with the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (TECO) and an Ecotone Model (WAVE) as well as a Consumer Stochastic Dynamic Program where the models will function as tools for data analysis and integration as well as tools to explore parameter space not represented in the experiments. This complex project that combines observational and experimental data with models to generate novel forecasts for dryland ecology is risky, however, the proposed activities should advance the frontiers of ecology by developing and testing new theory on the ecological consequences of climate variance.