Workshop: "Use of 15N tracer addition datasets to quantify and synthesize relationships between stream biodiversity..." to be held at Kansas State University - Dec. 2010

Southern Illinois University At Carbondale, Carbondale IL

Investigators

Abstract

Understanding biological factors that govern ecosystem processes and functions in freshwater habitats is critical for maintaining water quality and conserving freshwater biodiversity. Using pre-existing data sets from 15N isotope addition studies in headwater streams in various regions of the world, this synthesis workshop will identify relationships between biodiversity, food web structure, and nitrogen cycling in headwater streams. As part of the NSF-funded Lotic Intersite Nitrogen eXperiment (LINX) project and subsequent related studies, investigators used 15N additions to headwater streams in North America, Central America, Europe, Iceland, and New Zealand to trace and model nitrogen cycling in different regions and climates. These tracer studies also generated considerable data on food web structure in these systems, much of which remains unanalyzed. This workshop will assemble a team of seventeen stream ecologists, ranging from graduate students to professors, to analyze and synthesize food web structure and nitrogen cycling in these streams. These analyses will allow for a robust, quantitative examination how food web structure and biodiversity influence nutrient uptake and retention, processes that are critical to water quality, across gradients of precipitation and latitude. Information generated from this workshop will further our understanding of the consequences of biodiversity losses, exotic species, and climate change to freshwater ecosystem health and function. Results of this synthesis effort will be presented at national meetings, published in the peer-reviewed literature, and made available on the NSF-Long Term Ecological Network (LTER) and LINX project web sites. Many of the workshop participants are early career scientists, who will benefit greatly from their involvement in this effort. This effort will also broaden the scope of LTER research by bringing together LTER and non-LTER investigators and data sets.