Announcements
Oxygen priming induced by elevated CO2 reduced carbon accumulation and methane emission in coastal wetlands
January 5, 2023
Genevieve published a paper in Nature Geoscience on the SMARTX elevated CO2 and warming experiment!
"Warming temperatures and elevated CO2 are inextricably linked global change phenomena, but they are rarely manipulated together in feld experiments. As a result, ecosystem-level responses to these interacting facets of global change remain poorly understood. Here we report on a four-year feld manipulation of warming and elevated CO2 in a coastal wetland. Contrary to our expectations, elevated CO2 combined with warming reduced the rate of carbon accumulation due to increases in plant-mediated oxygen fux that stimulated aerobic decomposition via oxygen priming. Evidence supporting this interpretation includes an increase in soil redox potential and a decrease in the nominal oxidation state of the dissolved organic carbon pool. While warming alone stimulated methane (CH4) emissions, we found that elevated CO2 combined with warming reduced net CH4 fux due to plant–microbe feedbacks. Together, these results demonstrate that ecosystem responses to interacting facets of global change are mediated by plant traits that regulate the redox state of the soil environment. Thus, plant responses are critical for predicting future ecosystem survival and climate feedbacks."
Genevieve L. Noyce, Alexander J. Smith, Matthew L. Kirwan, Roy L. Rich & J. Patrick Megonigal
Even modest climate change may lead to major transitions in boreal forests
August 10, 2022
Roy published a paper in Nature on the impacts of warming in southern boreal forests!
“The sensitivity of forests to near-term warming and associated precipitation shifts remains uncertain. Herein, using a 5-year open-air experiment in southern boreal forest, we show divergent responses to modest climate alteration among juveniles of nine co-occurring North American tree species.”
Reich, P.B., Bermudez, R., Montgomery, R.A., Rich, R.L., Rice, K.E., Hobbie, S.E., and Stefanski, A. (2022).
Considering coasts: Adapting terrestrial models to characterize coastal wetland ecosystems
June 15, 2021
Genevieve, Roy, and Pat published modified E3SM models to mimic tidal marsh dynamics and SMARTX findings in Ecological Modeling!
“The Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) simulates fully coupled processes and interactions among water, energy, carbon and nutrient cycles. E3SM connects vegetation and soil dynamics through nutrient uptake, plant production, litterfall and decomposition as a function of abiotic parameters (e.g. temperature and moisture). However, E3SM is designed to characterize terrestrial ecosystems and connects land and open ocean systems using a single streamflow transport term, ignoring the complex dynamics of energy, water, carbon, and nutrients in coastal systems. The goals of our project were to: (1) Parameterize a point version of E3SM to capture coastal wetland habitats and (2) Determine marsh community responses to increased temperature and elevated CO2.”
O’Meara, T.A., Thornton, P.E., Ricciuto, D.M.,Noyce, G. L., Rich, R.L., and Megonigal, J. P. (2021).
Biogeochemical and plant trait mechanisms drive enhanced methane emissions in response to whole-ecosystem warming
April 19, 2021
Genevieve and Pat published findings from SMARTX in Biogeosciences!
“Climate warming perturbs ecosystem carbon (C) cycling, causing both positive and negative feedbacks on greenhouse gas emissions. In 2016, we began a tidal marsh field experiment in two vegetation communities to investigate the mechanisms by which whole-ecosystem warming alters C gain, via plant-driven sequestration in soils, and C loss, primarily via methane (CH4) emissions. Here, we report the results from the first 4 years.”
Noyce, G. L. and Megonigal, J. P. (2021).
Synergistic effects of four climate change drivers on terrestrial carbon cycling
November 23, 2020
Roy published a paper in Nature Geoscience with TeRaCON collaborators!
"Disentangling impacts of multiple global changes on terrestrial carbon cycling is important, both in its own right and because such impacts can dampen or accelerate increases in atmospheric CO2 concentration. Here we report on an eight-year grassland experiment, TeRaCON, in Minnesota, United States, that factorially manipulated four drivers: temperature, rainfall, CO2 and nitrogen deposition.”
Reich, P. B., Hobbie, S. E., Lee, T. D., Rich, R., Pastore, M. A., & Worm, K. (2020).
March 21, 2023
Former Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow Elise Eeraerts and Roberto Aparicio Ronda opened their video installation Like snakes, the roots of trees, Coil themselves from rock and sand. This work was created in collaboration with the Technology and Ecology lab, and explores the intersection of fable and fact in wetlands.
Photo: Joeri Thiry STUK
January 18, 2023
SERC Post-doc Alia Al-Haj is featured in the Hakai Magazine article Salt Marsh Microbes Threaten to Reshape the Atmosphere. She explains her Marsh Organ experiment, and the importance of smelling salt marshes!
Photo: Christian Elliott
August 5, 2022
A successful 2022 GCREW census! The Biogeochemistry and TE lab technicians, interns, and volunteers all worked together over a two-week period to count, measure, and clip thousands of stems in our annual census.
Photo: Genevieve Noyce
December 22, 2021
Happy Holidays and New Year from the TE Lab!
Find more about our GENX holiday lights here!
Photo: Roy Rich
October 29, 2021
GCREW experienced record high tides!
Photo: Genevieve Noyce
August 13, 2021
The TE Lab has deployed a new weather station at the Global Change Research Wetland! The station uses multiple instruments to collect MET, water level, and soil data every 15 minutes.
Photo: Leona Neftaliem
April 2, 2021
Automated methane chambers designed by Roy and Genevieve have become the newest addition to the Global Change Research Wetland! Twelve methane chambers were deployed as a part of GENX to capture methane data at short time scales, including methane changes in response to precipitation, tidal cycles, and other weather events.
Photo: Genevieve Noyce
March 5, 2021
Marc deployed a pilot experiment at the Virginia Coast Reserve using our CO2 sensors! Marc will be deploying 24 more sensors on the Eastern shore of Virginia to capture CO2 dynamics at a rapidly changing terrestrial-aquatic interface.
Photo: Marc Rosenfield
