OOS 12: Ecological Consequences of Variability in Climate

Session Organizer(s)

• Jennifer Rudgers

  Department of Biology, University of New Mexico
  Albuquerque, NM, USA

Moderator(s)

• Anny Chung

  University of Georgia

Volunteer(s)

• Sachinthani Karunarathne

  School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, Faculty of Science, The University of Melbourne, Australia

Anticipating the consequences of climate change is arguably the most pressing challenge at the interface of science and society. Forecasting the ecological futures of Earth’s ecosystems requires understanding not only the long-term consequences of changes in average climate, but also the impacts of increasing variability in climate at seasonal and inter-annual time scales. Prior empirical work, particularly existing climate change experiments, has largely emphasized mean climate trends, with some attention to extreme events. Yet, theory predicts that temporal variance in climate can have powerful ecological impacts. Effects of variance can arise from nonlinearities in ecological responses to climate variables and stochasticity in climate events. Empirical resolution of the effects of variance in climate has lagged behind theory because these effects often play out over timescales that exceed standard funding cycles, making this a critical scientific frontier.

Presentations:

• ON DEMAND

  Desert bee and rodent assemblages track climate variability
  

  Presenting Author: Melanie R. Kazenel – Department of Biology, University of New Mexico
• ON DEMAND

  Divergent response of aboveground net primary production to increasing precipitation variability in global drylands
  

  Presenting Author: Enqing Hou – Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University
• ON DEMAND

  Dryland soil mycobiome response to precipitation variability depends on host plant association
  

  Presenting Author: Nicolas Louw – Plant Biology, University of Georgia
• ON DEMAND

  Ecosystem adaptation is the dominant source of uncertainty in projections of rangeland production responses to climate change
  

  Presenting Author: Andrew Felton – Department of Wildland Resources and The Ecology Center, Utah State University
• ON DEMAND

  Increased precipitation variability causes boom-bust cycles in invasive annual grasses, while increasingly stressed perennials persist
  

  Presenting Author: Lauren M. Porensky – Rangeland Resources and Systems Research Unit, USDA-ARS
• ON DEMAND

  Population responses to past and future environmental variability across the LTER network
  

  Presenting Author: Benedicte Bachelot – Plant Biology, Ecology, and Evolution, Oklahoma State University