Ellen Cieraad

Connecting people and ideas from around the world: global innovation platforms for next-generation ecology and beyond

We present a case for using Global Community Innovation Platforms (GCIPs), an approach to improve innovation and knowledge exchange in international scientific communities through a common and open online infrastructure. We highlight the value of GCIPs by focusing on recent efforts targeting the ecological sciences, where GCIPs are of high relevance given the urgent need for interdisciplinary, geographical, and cross-sector collaboration to cope with growing challenges to the environment as well as the scientific community itself. Amidst the emergence of new international institutions, organizations, and meetings, GCIPs provide a stable international infrastructure for rapid and long-term coordination that can be accessed by any individual. This accessibility can be especially important for researchers early in their careers. Recent examples of early-career GCIPs complement an array of existing options for early-career scientists to improve skill sets, increase academic and social impact, and broaden career opportunities. We provide a number of examples of existing early-career initiatives that incorporate elements from the GCIPs approach, and highlight an in-depth case study from the ecological sciences: the International Network of Next-Generation Ecologists (INNGE), initiated in 2010 with support from the International Association for Ecology and 20 member institutions from six continents.

Secondary woody vegetation patterns in New Zealand’s South Island dryland zone

Abstract Can New Zealand’s indigenous dryland ecosystems be rehabilitated by facilitating inherent successional tendencies to enhance development of indigenous-dominated and often woody communities in the long term? Here, we describe the geographic distribution of woody communities of New Zealand’s South Island drylands to generate hypotheses about successional trajectories to future vegetation states. Presences and absences of woody species in 3880 vegetation plots collated from past surveys were used to predict species potential distributions across drylands. Separate models and spatial predictions were built for each of four classes of woody richness, which were used as surrogates for successional stages. Woody species richness increased significantly from grassland to shrubland and from shrubland to forest cover, and trends in species traits also suggest richness class was related with successional stage. Indigenous woody species outnumbered exotic species in all richness classes. Assuming richness classes represent temporal progressions, our results suggest relatively homogeneous early-successional woody associations succeed to a divergent array of woody associations in different environments. Growth forms of species in our predicted associations suggest transitions from grassland to tall, tree-rich forests in northern and coastal drylands, and to liane-rich open or lightcanopied shrubland, woodland, or low forest in more severe inland environments. These putative communities are novel in species composition but physiognomically broadly similar to pre-settlement analogues. Especially in severe inland environments, unassisted transitions from grassland to indigenousdominated late-successional woody communities may depend on the exclusion of tall exotic trees, Scotch broom, and gorse in early succession.

Effects of irrigation and addition of nitrogen fertiliser on net ecosystem carbon balance for a grassland

The ability to quantify the impacts of changing management practices on the components of net ecosystem carbon balance (NB) is required to forecast future changes in soil carbon stocks and potential feedbacks on atmospheric CO2 concentrations. In this study we investigated seasonal changes on the components of net ecosystem carbon balance resulting from the application of irrigation and nitrogen fertiliser to a temperate grassland in New Zealand where we simulated grazing events. We made seasonal measurements of the components of NB using chamber measurements in field plots with and without irrigation and addition of nitrogen fertiliser. We developed models to determine the physiological responses of gross canopy photosynthesis (A), leaf respiration (RL) and soil respiration (RS) to soil and air temperature, soil water content and irradiance and we estimated annual NB for the first year after treatments were applied. Overall, irrigation and nitrogen addition had a synergistic effect to increase annual estimates of above-ground components of carbon balance (A, RL and carbon exported through simulated grazing, Fexport), but there was no effect from adding nitrogen alone. Annual RS remained unchanged between treatments. The treatments resulted in increases in above-ground biomass production, but, with the high intensity of simulated grazing, these were not sufficient to offset ecosystem carbon losses, so all treatments remained a net source of carbon. There were no significant differences between treatments and annual NB ranged from -540gCm-2y-1 for the treatment with no irrigation and no nitrogen addition and -284gCm-2y-1 for the treatment with irrigation and nitrogen addition. Our findings from the first year of the treatments quantify the net benefits of addition of irrigation and nitrogen on increasing above-ground production for animal feed but show that this did not lead to a net increase carbon input to the soil.

Precipitation Pattern Determines the Inter-annual Variation of Herbaceous Layer and Carbon Fluxes in a Phreatophyte-Dominated Desert Ecosystem

Arid and semi-arid ecosystems dominated by shrubby species are an important component in the global carbon cycle but are largely under-represented in studies of the effect of climate change on carbon flux. This study synthesizes data from long-term eddy covariance measurements and experiments to assess how changes in ecosystem composition, driven by precipitation patterns, affect inter-annual variability of carbon flux and their components in a halophyte desert community dominated by deep-rooted shrubs (phreatophytes, which depend on groundwater as their primary water source). Our results demonstrated that the carbon balance of this community responded strongly to precipitation variations. Both pre-growing season precipitation and growing season precipitation frequency significantly affected inter-annual variations in ecosystem carbon flux. Heavy pre-growing season precipitation (November–April, mostly as snow) increased annual net ecosystem carbon exchange, by facilitating the growth and carbon assimilation of shallow-rooted annual plants, which used spring and summer precipitation to increase community productivity. Sufficient pre-growing season precipitation led to more germination and growth of shallow-rooted annual plants. When followed by high-frequency growing season precipitation, community productivity of this desert ecosystem was lifted to the level of grassland or forest ecosystems. The long-term observations and experimental results confirmed that precipitation patterns and the herbaceous component were dominant drivers of the carbon dynamics in this phreatophyte-dominated desert ecosystem. This study illustrates the importance of inter-annual variations in climate and ecosystem composition for the carbon flux in arid and semi-arid ecosystems. It also highlights the important effect of changing frequency and seasonal pattern of precipitation on the regional and global carbon cycle in the coming decades.

Summer rain pulses may stimulate a CO2 release rather than absorption in desert halophyte communities

Background and aimsThe response of plants and soil to rain pulses determines seasonal variations in the exchange of materials and energy at the ecosystem scale in arid and semi-arid regions. We assessed how the ecosystem carbon exchange (NEE) of desert halophyte communities of different plant functional-types responds to summer precipitation pulses in Tamarix and Haloxylon communities.MethodsPlant water status, photosynthetic gas exchange, soil respiration and net ecosystem carbon exchange were measured to test the hypothesis that high physiological sensitivity may induce a greater changes in NEE resulting from the summer precipitation pulses in Haloxylon community.ResultsPlant water status and photosynthetic assimilation did not differ before and after summer precipitation pulses in either community. In contrast, soil respiration and NEE responded strongly to summer precipitation events in both communities. At the ecosystem level, precipitation pulses induced a pulse of CO2 release, rather than absorption. The NEE response to summer precipitation was less in the deep-rooted Tamarix community, compared to the shallow-rooted Haloxylon community, which was even converted into a carbon source after summer precipitation inputs. As a result, the effect of summer precipitation inputs on soil respiration was more important than the plant (carbon assimilation) response in determining the ecosystem response to episodic precipitation pulses.

The next generation of action ecology: novel approaches towards global ecological research

This paper was commissioned by the members of the Ecosphere Editorial Board to commemorate the ESA Centennial celebration.

Variation of water use efficiency across seasons and years: Different role of herbaceous plants in desert ecosystem

Desert ecosystems often structured in two distinct layers of woody and herbaceous plants. Changes in community composition alter the fractional coverage by bare soil, woody and herbaceous plants, with potential effects on water and carbon fluxes. We used eddy covariance measurements and chamber method in two similar shrub-dominated desert communities (Tamarix community and Haloxylon community) to assess inter- and intra-annual variations of ecosystem water use efficiency (EWUE) (where we distinguished whole ecosystem EWUE as EWUEE, and EWUE of shrub and herbaceous layers as EWUEShrub and EWUEHerb) in central Asia. In the Tamarix community, 11 years of carbon and water fluxes showed that years with larger herbaceous cover (referred to as shrub-herb years) had significant higher EWUEE than years with lower herbaceous cover (referred to as shrub years), with the values of 1.07 ± 0.11 vs. 0.68 ± 0.03 g C/kg H2O. There was a significant positive correlation between EWUEE and the maximum herbaceous plants cover. In the Haloxylon community, chamber measurements during a shrub year demonstrated that the shrub layer contributed most to the gross ecosystem productivity (GEP) and evapotranspiration (ET) of the system, with the herbaceous layer contributing around 30% at the beginning of the growing season, and decreasing to nearly zero during the middle and at the end of the growing season. The shrub layer EWUEShrub was significant higher than that in the herbaceous layer (EWUEHerb) throughout the growing season (1.82 ± 0.11 vs. 1.06 ± 0.32 g C/kg H2O). EWUEShrub was positively correlated with EWUEE, but there was no relationship between EWUEHerb and EWUEE in a shrub year. This study shows that the variability of the herbaceous layer across seasons and years in these desert ecosystems is crucial for predicting water and carbon cycling under ongoing and projected climatic change scenarios in shrub-dominated desert ecosystems.