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Recent Presentations - Talks and Posters

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Ecological Sites

Landscape Ecology

  • Using Knowledge of Residential Landscape Vegetation Spatial Variability to Support Water Conservation (SD Al-Kofahi, C Steele, D VanLeeuwen, Z Samani, R St.Hilaire) -With over half a million inhabitants in 2010, Albuquerque is the largest city in New Mexico (US Census, 2011). Groundwater from the Santa Fe group aquifer supplies over half the domestic water for the city. Much of this domestic water is used to irrigate residential landscapes. Managing residential landscape water usage requires knowledge about the city's spatial distribution of residential vegetation because significant water conservation could be realised if landscape irrigation is based on reference evapotranspiration of different vegetation types (Pannkuk et al., 2011).
  • Utilizing the Trophic Interactions of Nematodes as Indicators of Change in Soil Biota Associated with the Loss of Bouteloua eriopoda Grasslands (J Klass, J Trojan, S Thomas, D Peters, S Hansen) - A theoretical framework of desertification has been developed on the Chihuahuan Desert within the Jornada Basin LTER. Within this framework, a change in dominant processes through time and patterns across space result in the nonlinear expansion of shrubs across landscapes. Spatial variation in distribution of gap size changes from high connectivity of vegetated patches in grasslands to low connectivity of vegetated patches and increases in bare ground in shrublands; the importance of wind and water erosion increase as gap size increases. With increased connectivity, increased retention also occurs where soil biotic interactions should be working at a high degree within continuous vegetation.
  • Long-term Studies Provide Insights to Diverse Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecosystem Dynamics (J Yao, D Peters) - Environmental drivers are changing at local to global scales with corresponding effects on ecological dynamics. Large amounts of data have been collected to document these changes. However, much of the data remain inaccessible to a broad audience. Therefore, solutions to these environmental problems have been elusive. The EcoTrends Project is one of the first attempts to standardize, simplify, integrate, and visualize data from diverse terrestrial, aquatic, and marine ecosystems to promote understanding and synthesis by a broad audience.
  • Production and Biodiversity Responses to Extreme Climatic Events Across a Heterogeneous Landscape (D Peters, J Yao, O Sala) - Production and Biodiversity Responses to Extreme Climatic Events Across a Heterogeneous Landscape. Temperatures are increasing globally, but the magnitude and trajectory of localized changes in precipitation are uncertain. This uncertainty in climate results is uncertainty in predictions of future ecosystem dynamics. We used 18 years of ecosystem responses that included a series of both dry and wet years to predict future dynamics of a heterogeneous landscape under directional changes in climate.
  • Climate Change and Potential Reversal of Regime Shifts in Desert Ecosystems (D Peters, J Yao, O Sala) - Temperatures are increasing globally, but the magnitude and trajectory of localized changes in precipitation are uncertain. This uncertainty in climate results in uncertainty in predictions of future ecosystem dynamics. We used 19 years of ecosystem responses that included a series of both dry and wet years to predict future dynamics of a heterogeneous landscape under directional changes in climate. We compared these dynamics with long-term (140 year) historical trends in vegetation to determine if climate change provides opportunities for shrublands to revert to grasslands located in different parts of the landscape.
  • Resilience‐Based Management (J Herrick) - Resilient landscapes resist and recover from degradation, are less likely to cross a threshold or ‘tipping point’, maintain their capacity to support current and future societal needs (ecosystem services).

Monitoring and Assessment

Microbial Biology / Endophytes

  • Soil Disturbance Increases Soil Microbial Enzymatic Activity in Arid Ecoregions (LK Schwab-Uchanski1, A Unc, M Lucero) - Functional diversity of the soil microbial community is commonly used in the assessment of soil health as it relates to the activity of soil microflora involved in carbon cycling. Soil microbes in different microenvironments will have varying responses to different substrates, thus catabolic fingerprint information, via substrate induced respiration, of each location-specific community can be obtained. These profiles are commonly used to assess the fertility potential and soil health under variable management or soil degradation scenarios.
  • Discriminatory Power of MicroResp Analyses Across Variable Spatial Scales in Semiarid Ecological Zones (ME Tahtamouni, A Unc, M Lucero, S Khresat) - Indirect assessment of enzymatic activity potential via substrate induced respiration is a common tool used to evaluate variability in soil microbial activity induced by environmental or management variables.
  • Community Level Microbial Diversity, Nitrogen Cycling Potential and Physiological Profiles in Arid Lands Affected by Natural Gas Extraction Activities (A Unc, L K Schwab, M Lucero, F A Nalim, M E W Tahtamouni) - Cryptobioticsoil crusts in arid regions contribute to ecosystem stability through increased water infiltration, soil aggregate stability, and nutrient cycling between the soil community and vascular plants. Loss of this crust may drastically affect the potential of these soils to sustain microbial activity and limits the likelihood of success for re-vegetation efforts.  Managing the fertility of these soils requires understanding of the soil microbial ecological networks. Unfortunately desert soil fertility is an often-overlooked area of investigation.
  • Arid Soils Microbial Enzymatic Activity Profile As Affected By Geographical Location And Soil Degradation Status (E Tahtamouni, A Unc, M Lucero, S Khresat) - Assessment of changes in soil health status is critical for quantifying the impact of any land remediation effort. Minimal carbon, low water content, and limited nutrient availability, common stresses in arid lands, lead to restricted and seasonal microbial activity. This challenges soil health and vegetation restoration efforts. In the present study, we evaluated the total-soil catabolic activity profiles for two distinct arid zone locations, one in the Northern Chihuahuan (NC) desert and a second one on tablelands in the Arizona/ New Mexico Plateau (ANMP).
  • Impact of Disturbance on Soil Microbial Activity in the Northern Chihuahuan Desert (LK Schwab, A Unc, M Lucero) - Cryptobiotic soil crusts in arid regions contribute to ecosystem stability through increased water infiltration, soil aggregate stability, and nutrient cycling between the soil community and vascular plants. These crusts are particularly sensitive to compaction/fracturing disturbances such as livestock grazing, off-road vehicle use, trampling by humans, and drilling and mining activities. Loss of soil crusts is believed to increase the rate of desertification, and recent findings indicate that crusts are extremely slow to recover, on the order of hundreds of years.
  • Can Shrub Microbiomes Influence Adaptation Across Ecological Gradients? (M Lucero, A Unc, A Nalim, S Khresat) - Cryptic symbiotic microbes influence host adaptation by improving nutrient uptake or stress tolerance. Current technologies for increasing plant productivity, whether for food and fuel production or for restoration and remediation, often utilize approaches that bypass, rather than leverage, microbial influences. Such technologies are insufficient for reversing desertification and increasing vegetative production to meet the increased demands of expanding populations and changing climates.
  • Microbial Enzymatic Activity in Degraded Arid Soils: Implications for Plant Community Restoration (LK Schwab, E Tahtamouni, M Lucero, A Unc) - Soil health evaluation is a critical component of plant community remediation efforts. Arid lands, with minimal carbon and water contents, low nutritional status and restricted, seasonal activity pose specific challenges to restoration of soil and vascular plant communities. It is hypothesized that microbial metabolic profiles in arid soils and soil crusts are sensitive to relatively minor compaction and fracturing disturbances such as livestock grazing, off-road vehicle use, trampling by humans, and drilling and mining activities. Post-disturbance recovery rates for soil bacterial and fungal populations are understudied.
  • Diversity Of Rhizospheric Microbial Communities Of Two Chenopodiaceae With Varied Halotolerance (A Ruiz-Font, S Trejo-Estrada, M Lucero) - Saline soils can be found on all continents and in most countries. They consist of soils derived from seawater and non-seawater sources. Plants growing in saline soils are exposed to various levels of moisture and salinity stress during their life cycle. Plant associated microbes may help mediate such stress. We analyzed rhizospheric soil and leaf litter microbial communities associated with two saline-adapted chenopod plants, Suaeda mexicana, from central Mexico and Atriplex canescens, from the Chihuahuan Desert region of the United States.
  • Metagenomic Analysis of Atriplex Microbiomes: Investigating Plant-Microbe Interactions that Enhance Adaptation to Extreme Habitats (M Lucero, A Unc, A Nalim, P Cooke, S Khresat) - Cryptic symbiotic microbes influence host adaptation by improving nutrient uptake or stress tolerance. Current technologies for increasing plant productivity, whether for food and fuel production or for restoration and remediation, often utilize approaches that bypass, rather than leverage, microbial influences.

Remote Sensing

Other

  • Distribution of Antiherbivory Compounds in Flourensia cernua (R Estell, E Fredrickson, D James, D Anderson) -Flourensia cernua is being used as a shrub model to study the role of terpenes in intake by browsing ruminants at the Jornada Experimental Range. Tarbush consumption by small ruminants is related to leaf surface concentration of individual terpenes, but plant to plant variability in concentration is high. Our objective was to identify sources of within-plant sources of variation in leaf chemistry in an effort to minimize sample variation and optimize sampling protocols.
  • How International Research Cooperation in Africa, Asia and Latin America is Benefiting U.S. Efforts to Address Land Use Change and  Management (J Herrick, J Karl, B Bestelmeyer, K Havstad, et al.) - This presentation proposes the creation of a virtual (online) “Global Conservation Assessment Project” supported by a Global Sustainable Land Management System.  It includes examples of how USDA scientists are working with others around the world to develop innovative land management and monitoring systems that will help meet the challenge of feeding 9 billion people by 2050. The final slide includes a list of publications (available on this website) that provide more information on these proposals.
  • Long-term Studies Provide Insights to Diverse Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecosystem Dynamics (J Yao, D Peters) - Environmental drivers are changing at local to global scales with corresponding effects on ecological dynamics. Large amounts of data have been collected to document these changes. However, much of the data remain inaccessible to a broad audience. Therefore, solutions to these environmental problems have been elusive. The EcoTrends Project is one of the first attempts to standardize, simplify, integrate, and visualize data from diverse terrestrial, aquatic, and marine ecosystems to promote understanding and synthesis by a broad audience.
  • Tools to Study and Manage Grazing Behavior at Multiple Scales to Enhance the Sustainability of Livestock Production Systems (D Anderson) - No single tool exists to answer all questions, complex tools require sophisticated teams, tools should foster low stress animal handling, use tools that capitalize on innate animal behavior.

 

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