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Two grasses, Agropyron smithii and A. inerme , were planted in a seed mixture with Ceratoides lanata in 1977 on two soil disturbances. These grasses were selected to test their responses to the presence of C. lanata . Biomass of leaf, stem, crown and roots were measured for each grass alone, with other plants of the same species, and with C. lanata as nearest neighbor. Total non-structural carbohydrates were determined for all biomass samples. A. smithii produced the lowest amounts of stem and root biomass when grown in close association with another A. smithii plant. In contrast, this species produced the most shallow-root (0-20 cm) biomass when closely associated with C. lanata. A. inerme leaf biomass was lowest...
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Studies were conducted in the central Mojave Desert to quantify how creosote bushes (Larrea tridentata) respond to physical damage during large-scale military training exercises. Creosote bush possesses a resilient growth form that recovers from repeated physical damage via resprouts arising from meristems in stem bark below severed or crushed canopy units. At high levels of disturbance by heavy vehicles, nearly all individuals showed measurable breakage, but without additional damage each plant can regain a full canopy within 5 years under arid field conditions. Resprouts exhibited more vigorous growth and doubled the biomass accumulation stimulated by high rainfall of 1998, an El Niño year, vs. a normal year....
We characterized, at millimeter resolution, bacterial biomass, diversity, and vertical stratification of biological soil crusts in arid lands from the Colorado Plateau. Microscopic counts, extractable DNA, and plate counts of viable aerobic copiotrophs (VAC) revealed that the top centimeter of crusted soils contained atypically large bacterial populations, tenfold larger than those in uncrusted, deeper soils. The plate counts were not always consistent with more direct estimates of microbial biomass. Bacterial populations peaked at the immediate subsurface (1-2 mm) in light-appearing, young crusts, and at the surface (0-1 mm) in well-developed, dark crusts, which corresponds to the location of cyanobacterial populations....
An irrigated study was conducted at the Western Colorado Research Center at Fruita for 6 years to evaluate eight hybrid poplar clones under short-term, intensive culture. The eight clones included in the study were Populus nigra x P. maximowiczii (NM6), P. trichocarpa x P. deltoides (52225, OP367), and P. deltoides x P. nigra (Norway, Noreaster, Raverdaus, 14274, 14272). Data were collected for growth, aerial biomass yield, dry matter partitioning, carbon sequestration, and insect and disease infestation. OP367 and 52225 consistently had larger tree diameters than other hybrids for each of the 6 years. Averaged across clones, yield was 58.4 Mg ha?1. OP367 had the highest yield at 72.2 Mg ha?1 and 14274 had the lowest...
Pelagic fish communities (waters with depths >20 m) of Lakes Powell and Mead were examined quarterly from 1995 to1998 using vertical gill nets and a scientific echosounder. Nets captured a total of 449 fish consisting of striped bass (57%/45% [Lake Powell/Lake Mead]), threadfin shad (24%/50%), common carp (15%/4%), walleye (3%), channel catfish (2%), and rainbow trout (<1%). Each reservoir contained concentrations of pelagic species separated by expanses of habitat with few fish (<10 kg ? ha?1). Reservoirs experienced dramatic seasonal and annual fluctuations in pelagic biomass. Lake Powell?s biomass peaked at the Colorado River at 709.7 (�46.5) kg ? ha?1 and Lake Mead?s reached 291.9 (�58.2) kg ? ha?1 at Las Vegas...
Downy brome (Bromus tectorum L.) is an alien grass that dominates disturbed ground in shrub-steppe ecosystems of the western United States. Responses of downy brome to added nitrogen and water were evaluated using intact soil cores obtained from an old field. Gas exchange data were gathered at the leaf and canopy scales. Stomatal conductance and net photosynthesis rates were greater at the leaf scale than at the canopy scale, decreased with time from germination, and were weakly affected by treatments. Water-use efficiency was weakly related to time from germination and treatments. Biomass was greater in the nitrogen-plus-water (7.4 g) treatment, compared with water (3.6 g), nitrogen (4.5 g), and control (3.3 g)...
Encroachment of woody plants into grasslands, and subsequent brush management, are among the most prominent changes to occur in arid and semiarid systems over the past century. Despite the resulting widespread changes in landcover, substantial uncertainty about the biogeochemical impacts of woody proliferation and brush management exists. We explored the role of shrub encroachment and brush management on leaf litter decomposition in a semidesert grassland where velvet mesquite (Prosopis velutina) abundance has increased over the past 100 years. This change in physiognomy may affect decomposition directly, through altered litter quality or quantity, and indirectly through altered canopy structure. To assess the direct...
A principal challenge in ecology is to integrate physiological function (e.g. photosynthesis) across a collection of individuals (e.g. plants of different species) to understand the functioning of the entire ensemble (e.g. primary productivity). The control that organism size exerts over physiological and ecological function suggests that allometry could be a powerful tool for scaling ecological processes across levels of organization. Here we use individual plant allometries to predict how nutrient content and productivity scale with total plant biomass (phytomass) in whole plant communities. As predicted by our model, net primary productivity as well as whole community nitrogen and phosphorus content all scale...
Southwestern North America faces an imminent transition to a warmer, more arid climate, and it is critical to understand how these changes will affect the carbon balance of southwest ecosystems. In order to test our hypothesis that differential responses of production and respiration to temperature and moisture shape the carbon balance across a range of spatio-temporal scales, we quantified net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of CO2 and carbon storage across the New Mexico Elevational Gradient, which consists of six eddy-covariance sites representing biomes ranging from desert to subalpine conifer forest. Within sites, hotter and drier conditions were associated with an increasing advantage of respiration relative to production...
Altered hydrology of southwestern United States rivers has led to a decline in native cottonwood (Populus deltoides). Areas historically dominated by cottonwood have been replaced by invasive saltcedar (Tamarix chinensis). Restoration of historic hydrology through periodic flooding of riparian areas has been a means of restoring native species. However, due to similarity in germination requirements of cottonwoods and saltcedars, flooding may create an unwanted increase in the number of saltcedar seedlings. Therefore, we evaluated competitive aspects of these co-occurring species in an extant riparian habitat in the arid southwestern US. We measured effects of competition between cottonwood and saltcedar seedlings...
The cycles of the key nutrient elements nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) have been massively altered by anthropogenic activities. Thus, it is essential to understand how photosynthetic production across diverse ecosystems is, or is not, limited by N and P. Via a large-scale meta-analysis of experimental enrichments, we show that P limitation is equally strong across these major habitats and that N and P limitation are equivalent within both terrestrial and freshwater systems. Furthermore, simultaneous N and P enrichment produces strongly positive synergistic responses in all three environments. Thus, contrary to some prevailing paradigms, freshwater, marine and terrestrial ecosystems are surprisingly similar in terms...
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Rainfall variability is a key driver of ecosystem structure and function in grasslands worldwide. Changes in rainfall patterns predicted by global climate models for the central United States are expected to cause lower and increasingly variable soil water availability, which may impact net primary production and plant species composition in native Great Plains grasslands. We experimentally altered the timing and quantity of growing season rainfall inputs by lengthening inter-rainfall dry intervals by 50%, reducing rainfall quantities by 30%, or both, compared to the ambient rainfall regime in a native tallgrass prairie ecosystem in northeastern Kansas. Over three growing seasons, increased rainfall variability...
This study evaluates the relative ability of simple light detection and ranging (lidar) indices (i.e., mean and maximum heights) and statistically derived canonical correlation analysis (CCA) variables attained from discrete-return lidar to estimate forest structure and forest biomass variables for three temperate subalpine forest sites. Both lidar and CCA explanatory variables performed well with lidar models having slightly higher explained variance and lower root mean square error. Adjusted R2 values were 0.93 and 0.93 for mean height, 0.74 and 0.73 for leaf area index, and 0.93 and 0.85 for all carbon in live biomass for the lidar and CCA explanatory regression models, respectively. The CCA results indicate...
The effects of elevated metals on stream periphyton in the Eagle River, a mining impacted river in central Colorado, were assessed in 1991 and 1992 using assemblage information (taxa richness, community similarity) and non-taxonomic measures (biomass, chlorophyll a, autotrophic index). The number of periphyton genera collected ranged from 2 at a site adjacent to abandoned mining operations to 21 at a downstream site, but was not significantly correlated with dissolved metals concentrations. Fragilaria and Achnanthes were the dominant genera at all sites, with Fragilaria dominating the less impacted sites and Achnanthes dominating at the more impacted sites. Taxonomic similarity was greatest among those sites receiving...
    map background search result map search result map Resprout characteristics of creosote bush (Larrea tridentata) when subjected to repeated vehicle damage Productivity responses to altered rainfall patterns in a C4-dominated grassland. Production of hybrid poplar under short-term, intensive culture in Western Colorado Productivity responses to altered rainfall patterns in a C4-dominated grassland. Resprout characteristics of creosote bush (Larrea tridentata) when subjected to repeated vehicle damage