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The Earth's ecosystems have evolved to their modern configurations and distributions in response to highly variable Quaternary climates and other factors, but today they are subject to novel combinations of disruptive factors and unprecedented rates of change, as human intervention increasingly plays a dominant role. DEES faculty are actively involved in understanding how projected anthropogenic changes in climate and atmospheric chemistry will affect both particular biota and whole ecosystems. Understanding potential changes to ecosystem function involves tracking physiological response of plants to variable water, nutrient, and CO2 availability. For example, the DEES operates the Frits Went Biological Research Lab, a unique state-of-the-art controlled growth-chamber facility that allows detailed measurements of soil-water-vegetation-atmosphere energy and material budgets of simulated ecosystems on a mesocosm scale. The Frits Went Lab and its enclosed EcoCELLs (Ecologically Controlled Environmental Lysimeter Laboratories) offer great potential for understanding ecosystem function and response under variable atmospheric and moisture conditions, and the development of plants and microorganisms for bio-remediation. DEES faculty are also leaders in experimental studies of biogeochemical cycles and the effects of soil nutrient loads on forest ecosystem function, and on the effects of elevated CO2 concentrations on Mojave Desert ecosystems (the Nevada FACE [Free-Air CO2 Enrichment] facility on the Nevada Test Site). DEES also maintains a strong research focus in understanding biological systems in extreme environments, such as Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys, a Long-Term Ecological Research site.
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Ecosystem Sciences:
Geological Research
Ecosystem Sciences