OPUS: Sycamore Creek Landscape Ecosystem

Arizona State University, Scottsdale AZ

Investigators

Abstract

This project will synthesize a large body of ecological research from a 27-year study of Sycamore Creek, a desert stream ecosystem in Arizona. This study has yielded over 120 scientific publications including a dozen synthetic works. The goal of the project is to bring together the content of these publications, existing raw data, series of photographs, and concepts from adjacent disciplines to generate a new synthesis in the form of a book that will describe the dynamics of Sycamore Creek and generate an original integration of the fields of ecosystem science and landscape ecology. The book, along with several papers in major scientific journals will contribute to our understanding of creative synthesis in ecology and other realms of science. The intellectual merit of this project lies in its annealing the disparate fields of ecosystem and landscape ecology and developing a sound philosophical view of synthesis in ecology. The broader impacts of this research include the training graduate students at Arizona State University to use the perspectives and methods of ecological synthesis in their own research and future teaching. This combination of research, teaching, and collaboration will promote and advance the methodology of synthesis in science.