Douglas Levey DEB Division Of Environmental Biology
BIO Direct For Biological Sciences
Start Date:
October 1, 2015
End Date:
February 28, 2021 (Estimated)
Awarded Amount to Date:
$627,911.00
Investigator(s):
Morgan Ernest skmorgane@ufl.edu (Principal Investigator)
Sponsor:
University of Florida
1 UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
GAINESVILLE, FL
32611-2002
(352)392-3516
NSF Program(s):
POP & COMMUNITY ECOL PROG
Program Reference Code(s):
9150, 9169, EGCH
Program Element Code(s):
1182
ABSTRACT
Changes in one component of an ecological system can sometimes cause major, relatively rapid, and seemingly permanent changes in the system as a whole. This project offers a rare opportunity to study the reversibility of such dramatic ecological changes in a rigorous way. The project will use a long-term experiment in the Chihuahuan Desert in which selective exclusions of rodents that are major seed eaters has produced sharp changes in the abundances of plant and animal species and in levels of soil nutrients. These exclusions will be reversed, and the effects on plants, animals, and soils measured over five years.
The broader impacts of this project include the training of two graduate students and broad outreach to the public through construction of a website for the communication of scientific research. In addition, better understanding of how specific factors can cause major shifts in ecological systems will help land managers and policy makers avoid unintended consequences of natural resource management.
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Bannar-Martin, Katherine H and Kremer, Colin T and Ernest, SK Morgan and Leibold, Mathew A and Auge, Harald and Chase, Jonathan and Declerck, Steven AJ and Eisenhauer, Nico and Harpole, Stanley and Hillebrand, Helmut and others. "Integrating community assembly and biodiversity to better understand ecosystem function: the Community Assembly and the Functioning of Ecosystems (CAFE) approach," Ecology letters, v.21, 2018, p. 167--180.
Christensen, Erica and Yenni, Glenda and Ye, Hao and Simonis, Juniper and Bledsoe, Ellen and Diaz, Renata and Taylor, Shawn and White, Ethan and Ernest, S. "portalr: an R package for summarizing and using the Portal Project Data," Journal of Open Source Software, v.4, 2019, p. 1098.
Dornelas, Maria and Antao, Laura H and Moyes, Faye and Bates, Amanda E and Magurran, Anne E and Adam, Du{\v{s}}an and Akhmetzhanova, Asem A and Appeltans, Ward and Arcos, Jose Manuel and Arnold, Haley and others. "BioTIME: A database of biodiversity time series for the Anthropocene," Global Ecology and Biogeography, v.27, 2018, p. 760--786.
Ernest, SK Morgan and Yenni, Glenda Marie and Allington, Ginger and Bledsoe, Ellen and Christensen, Erica and Diaz, Renata and Goheen, Jacob and Guo, Qinfeng and Heske, Edward and Kelt, Douglas and others. "The Portal Project: a long-term study of a Chihuahuan desert ecosystem," BioRxiv, 2018, p. 332783.
White, Ethan P and Yenni, Glenda M and Taylor, Shawn D and Christensen, Erica M and Bledsoe, Ellen K and Simonis, Juniper L and Ernest, SK Morgan. "Developing an automated iterative near-term forecasting system for an ecological study," Methods in Ecology and Evolution, v.10, 2019, p. 332--344.
Yenni, Glenda M and Christensen, Erica M and Bledsoe, Ellen K and Supp, Sarah R and Diaz, Renata M and White, Ethan P and Ernest, SK Morgan. "Developing a modern data workflow for regularly updated data," PLoS biology, v.17, 2019, p. e3000125.
Bledsoe, Ellen K, and S.K. Morgan Ernest. "Temporal changes in species composition affect a ubiquitous species? views of patch quality," Ecology, v.100, 2019, p. e02869.
Christensen EM, Simpson GL, Ernest SKM. "Established rodent community delays recovery of dominant competitor following experimental disturbance.," Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, v.1917, 2019, p. 20192269.
Dornelas, M. Antao, F. Moyes, F., Magurran, A.E., and 200 other authors including Ernest, S.K.M.. "BioTime: A database of biodiversity time series for the Anthropocene," Global Ecology and Biogeography, 2018.
Erica M. Christensen, David Harris, S.K. Morgan Ernest. "Multiple rapid regime shifts in a desert rodent community," Ecology, 2018.
Erica M. Christensen, Glenda M. Yenni, Hao Ye, Juniper L.Simonis, Ellen K. Bledsoe, Renata Diaz, Shawn D. Taylor, Ethan P. White, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. "portalr: an R package for summarizing and using the Portal Project Data," Journal of Open Source Software, v.4, 2019, p. 1098.
Ethan P. White, Glenda Yenni, Shawn Taylor, Erica M. Christensen, Ellen Bledsoe, Juniper Simonis, SK Morgan Ernest. "Developing an automated iterative near-term forecasting system for an ecological study," Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 2018.
Yenni GM, Christensen EM, Bledsoe EK, Supp SR, Diaz RM, White EP, Ernest SKM. "Developing a modern data workflow for regularly updated data," PLoS Biology, v.17, 2019, p. e3000125.
Ernest, S.K. Morgan, Yenni, Glenda, Allington, Ginger, Christensen, Erica M., Geluso, Keith, Goheen, Jacob R. Schutzenhofer, Michele, Supp, Sarah R., Thibault, Katherine M., Brown, James H., Valone, Thomas J.. "Long-term monitoring and experimental manipulation of a Chihuahuan Desert ecosystem near Portal, Arizona, USA (1977-2013).," Ecology, v.97, 2016, p. 1082.
Leibold, M.A. Chase, J.M. Ernest, S.K.M.. "Community Assembly and the Functioning of Ecosystems: How Metacommunity Processes Alter Ecosystem Attributes.," Ecology, v.98, 2017, p. 909.
Yenni, Glenda M. Adler, Peter M. Ernest, S.K. Morgan. "Do persistent rare species experience stronger negative frequency dependence than common species?," Global Ecology and Biogeography, v.26, 2017, p. 513.
S.K. Morgan Ernest, Glenda M. Yenni, Ginger Allington, Erica M Christensen, Keith Geluso, Jacob R Goheen, Michelle R Schutzenhofer, Sarah R. Supp, Katherine M. Thibault, James H Brown, Thomas J Valone. "Long-term monitoring and experimental manipulation of a Chihuahuan desert ecosystem near Portal, Arizona (1977?2013)," Ecology, v.97, 2016, p. 1082.
Katherine H Bannar?Martin, Colin T Kremer, SK Ernest, Mathew A Leibold, Harald Auge, Jonathan Chase, Steven AJ Declerck, Nico Eisenhauer, Stanley Harpole, Helmut Hillebrand, Forest Isbell, Thomas Koffel, Stefano Larsen, Anita Narwani, Jana S Petermann, Ch. "Integrating community assembly and biodiversity to better understand ecosystem function: the Community Assembly and the Functioning of Ecosystems (CAFE) approach," Ecology Letters, v.21, 2018, p. 167.
