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Ecosystem Ecology Active

By Environments Program June 25, 2018

Ecological research is largely concerned with the system levels beyond that of the organism. An ecological community is all the animal and plant populations occupying a given area. The community (biotic) and the nonliving environment function (abiotic) together as an ecological system or “ecosystem” which is governed by principles such as population dynamics, competition, and energy and material cycling. Our understanding of ecology contributes to decisions about how natural resources are managed. Research to understand ecosystem use by humans has led to the development of sub-disciplines such as sustainable development, resilience theory, restoration ecology, and ecosystem services.

CURRENT USGS SCIENCE:

 

Image: Polar Bears along Arctic Sea Ice
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.
Polar bears along sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. (Credit: Jessica K Robertson, USGS. Public domain.)

Alaska Science Center (ASC)

 

Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center (FRESC)

 
Blue flagging tape marks the path of a research transect in a Hawaiian rainforest on the island of Moloka'i.(Credit: Lucas Fortini, USGS.)

Fort Collins Science Center (FORT)

 

Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center (NOROCK)

 

Image: Forest ecology fieldwork
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.
USGS scientist Jenny Briggs (foreground) researches beetle-killed pines at a USGS study site near Maxwell Ranch, Colorado, while Colorado State University entomologist Dan West examines the bark of a dead tree. (Credit: Marisa Lubeck, USGS. Public domain.)

Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center (PIERC)

 

Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (PWRC)

 

Southwest Biological Science Center (SBSC)

 

Western Ecological Research Center (WERC)

 

Wetland and Aquatic Research Center (WARC)

 

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Sources/Usage: Public Domain.

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Publications related to Ecosystem Ecology are listed below.

Rivers are social–ecological systems: Time to integrate human dimensions into riverscape ecology and management

Incorporation of concepts from landscape ecology into understanding and managing riverine ecosystems has become widely known as riverscape ecology. Riverscape ecology emphasizes interactions among processes at different scales and their consequences for valued ecosystem components, such as riverine fishes. Past studies have focused strongly on understanding the ecological processes in riverscapes
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Ecosystems, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

Toward a social-ecological theory of forest macrosystems for improved ecosystem management

The implications of cumulative land-use decisions and shifting climate on forests, require us to integrate our understanding of ecosystems, markets, policy, and resource management into a social-ecological system. Humans play a central role in macrosystem dynamics, which complicates ecological theories that do not explicitly include human interactions. These dynamics also impact ecological service
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Ecosystems, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center

Evidence and opportunities for integrating landscape ecology into natural resource planning across multiple-use landscapes

Enhancing natural resource management has been a focus of landscape ecology since its inception, but numerous authors argue that landscape ecology has not yet been effective in achieving the underlying goal of planning and designing sustainable landscapes. We developed nine questions reflecting the application of fundamental research topics in landscape ecology to the landscape planning process an
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Ecosystems, Fort Collins Science Center

Interactions among invasive plants: Lessons from Hawai‘i

Most ecosystems have multiple-plant invaders rather than single-plant invaders, yet ecological studies and management actions focus largely on single invader species. There is a need for general principles regarding invader interactions across varying environmental conditions, so that secondary invasions can be anticipated and managers can allocate resources toward pretreatment or postremoval acti
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Ecosystems, Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center

Effects of climate change on ecological disturbance in the northern Rockies

Disturbances alter ecosystem, community, or population structure and change elements of the biological and/or physical environment. Climate changes can alter the timing, magnitude, frequency, and duration of disturbance events, as well as the interactions of disturbances on a landscape, and climate change may already be affecting disturbance events and regimes. Interactions among disturbance regim
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Alaska Science Center

Ecosystem vs. community recovery 25 years after grass invasions and fire in a subtropical woodland

Despite a large body of research documenting invasive plant impacts, few studies have followed individual invaded sites over decades to observe how they change, and none have contrasted how compositional impacts from invasion compare to ecosystem-process impacts over a multi-decadal time-scale. Using direct measurements of plant density and composition and of ecosystems processes, we evaluate h
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Ecosystems, Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center

The influence of soil resources and plant traits on invasion and restoration in a subtropical woodland

It has been shown in some cases that nitrogen (N) addition to soil will increase abundance of plant invaders because many invaders have traits that promote rapid growth in response to high resource supply. Similarly, it has been suggested, and sometimes shown, that decreasing soil N via carbon (C) additions can facilitate native species recovery. Yet all species are unlikely to respond to resource
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Ecosystems, Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center

Does the stress-gradient hypothesis hold water? Disentangling spatial and temporal variation in plant effects on soil moisture in dryland systems

The nature of the relationship between water limitation and facilitation has been one of the most contentious debates surrounding the stress-gradient hypothesis (SGH), which states that plant-plant interactions shift from competition to facilitation with increasing environmental stress. We take a closer look at the potential role of soil moisture in mediating plant-plant interaction outcomes by a
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Ecosystems, Southwest Biological Science Center

Desert grassland responses to climate and soil moisture suggest divergent vulnerabilities across the southwestern US

Climate change predictions include warming and drying trends, which are expected to be particularly pronounced in the southwestern United States. In this region, grassland dynamics are tightly linked to available moisture, yet it has proven difficult to resolve what aspects of climate drive vegetation change. In part, this is because it is unclear how heterogeneity in soils affects plant responses
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Ecosystems, Southwest Biological Science Center

Ecohydrology of dry regions: storage versus pulse soil water dynamics

Although arid and semiarid regions are defined by low precipitation, the seasonal timing of temperature and precipitation can influence net primary production and plant functional type composition. The importance of precipitation seasonality is evident in semiarid areas of the western U.S., which comprise the Intermountain (IM) zone, a region that receives important winter precipitation and is dom
By
Ecosystems, Sage-grouse & Sagebrush Ecosystem, Southwest Biological Science Center

Data and tools related to ecosystem ecology are listed below.

APPLICATION - Grand Canyon Aquatic Ecology Web Application

This application allows for the exploration of a select set of insect emergence data collected as part of a citizen science project initiated by the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center (GCMRC).  Data present in this application relate to a recent BioScience publication from USGS scientists and collaborators that investigated the effects of dam operations on downstream aquatic insects.

By
Southwest Biological Science Center

Software related to ecosystem ecology is listed below.

Evolutionary Ecology Software

The programs perform input file formation, distribution visualization, individual-based dynamic population simulation, pedigree accuracy assessment, effective population si

By
Eastern Ecological Science Center

News stories related to ecosystem ecology are listed below.

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Sampling Strategies for Monitoring Post-Disturbance Treatments on Rangelands

Methodological guidelines are needed to rapidly determine vegetation responses to wildfire and post-disturbance treatments, such as seeding and...

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Leave No Trace this Summer as You Explore the Outdoors

With summer officially here, it’s a great time to explore the outdoors! As people go hiking, camping, wildlife viewing and engage in other recreation...

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Integrating Human Dimensions into Riverscape Ecology and Management

Incorporation of concepts from landscape ecology into understanding and managing riverine ecosystems has become widely known as riverscape ecology.

Read Article
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Altering Sagebrush Landscapes with Fuel Breaks to Save Them from Wildfire

Linear fuel breaks have long been used to help suppress fire in the Great Basin, and thousands of miles of new fuel breaks may be constructed in...

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