Climate-change Impacts on Terrestrial Ecosystems: The Intersection of Restoration, Invasives, and Disturbance

Carnegie Institution Of Washington, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

This is a project on managing ecosystems to protect or enhance key ecosystem services. It focuses on the intersection between climate change and restoration. The central hypothesis is that climate change can facilitate or impede restoration of California grassland ecosystems to native perennial plants, with the direction of the effect depending on soil fertility and the prevalence of wildfire. Building on a legacy of ten years of global-change manipulations (e.g., enhanced nitrogen deposition, warming, elevated carbon dioxide and altered precipitation) at Jasper Ridge, the research will explore approaches for enhancing dominance by the native plants and increasing resistance to invasion by non-native plant species. The research involves a series of field-based manipulative experiments that will explore the role of climate change in facilitating or retarding the replacement of non-native plants with native perennial grassland. It will also address the role of wildfire in this restoration and assess the susceptibility to invasion of restored and unrestored grassland, all within the context of a wide range of simulated climate changes. The broader impacts component of the research has three parts. Part one involves enhancing the visibility and highlighting the policy relevance of manipulative experiments in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (where the PI is co-chair of Working Group 2 on impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability). Part two is based on transforming the results of the research into products and presentations designed to be useful to ecosystem managers. Part three adds a global climate component to an award-winning Jasper Ridge program focused on engaging sixth-grade students in environmental studies.