Climate and ecosystems
Climate shapes all ecosystems, and climate change caused by human activities is redistributing the world’s biomes, creating new combinations of conditions and organisms that have never previously existed. The relationship between ecosystems and climate is variable and contingent on local conditions like chemistry of the air, water or soil, or the introduction of exotic species or extirpation of natives.
We ask how mountain lake ecosystems vary along elevational climate gradients depending on the introduction of fish predators or the supply of different organic or inorganic resources. We sample a series of lakes annually to ask how climate variability associated with elevation or inter-annual fluctuations affect organisms from bacteria to fish and ecosystem processes like primary production, decomposition and carbon uptake.
A video of our field station and experimental array!
A lecture on Top down vs. Bottom up control of ecosystems!
A slideshow of our field work set to music by Marika Schulhof!