Diversity of species and order of arrival can have strong effects on ecosystem functioning and community composition, but these two have rarely been explicitly combined in experimental setups. We measured the effects of both species diversity and order of arrival on ecosystem function and community composition in a grassland field experiment, thus combining biodiversity and assembly approaches....

Traditional functional responses for plant-herbivore interactions do not take into account explicitly the effect of plant toxin. However, considerable evidence suggests that toxins set upper limits on food intake for many species of herbivorous vertebrates. In this paper, a mathematical model for plant-herbivore interactions mediated by toxin-determined functional response is studied. The model...

Soil seed bank composition is important to the recovery of natural and semi-natural areas from disturbance and serves as a safeguard against environmental catastrophe. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) populations have increased dramatically in eastern North America over the past century and can have strong impacts on aboveground vegetation, but their impacts on seed bank dynamics are ...

Assuming key trade-offs among interactors, several models (resource ratio, keystone predation, intraguild predation) predict changes in species composition over resource supply gradients. Ecological stoichiometry could also predict compositional shifts of grazers over gradients of nutrient and light supply through a mechanism involving (mis)matches between elemental body composition of grazers ...

BACKGROUND Floral nectar contains sugars and amino acids to attract pollinators. In addition, nectar also contains different secondary compounds, but little is understood about their origin or function. Does nectar composition reflect phloem composition, or is nectar synthesized and/or modified in nectaries? Studies where both, the nectar as well as the phloem sap taken from the same plant spec...

Title of Dissertation: CHARACTERIZATION OF PLANT ROOT CELL WALL STRUCTURAL CHANGES DURING DECOMPOSITION Kathryn Ella White, Doctor of Philosophy, 2015 Dissertation directed by: Professor Frank J. Coale, Department of Environmental Science and Technology Plant roots are important contributors of organic carbon compounds for soil organic matter (SOM) formation, particularly hemicellulose, cellulo...

Classical approaches to investigating temporal and spatial changes in community composition offer only partial insight into the ecology that drives species distribution, community patterns and processes, whereas a functional approach can help to determine many of the underlying mechanisms that drive such patterns. Here, we aim to bring these two approaches together to understand such drivers, u...

In order to understand plant functioning, plant community composition, and terrestrial biogeochemistry, it is decisive to study standing root biomass, (fine) root dynamics, and interactions belowground. While most plant taxa can be identified by visual criteria aboveground, roots show less distinctive features. Furthermore, root systems of neighboring plants are rarely spatially segregated; thu...

Species interactions are well known to affect species diversity in communities, but the effects of parasites have been less studied. Previous studies on parasitic plants have found both positive and negative effects on plant community diversity. Cuscuta howelliana is an abundant endemic parasitic plant that inhabits California vernal pools. We tested the hypothesis that C. howelliana acts as a ...

Anthropogenic drivers of environmental change often have multiple effects, including changes in biodiversity, species composition, and ecosystem functioning. It remains unknown whether such shifts in biodiversity and species composition may, themselves, be major contributors to the total, long-term impacts of anthropogenic drivers on ecosystem functioning. Moreover, although numerous experiment...