Jennifer A. Lau - US grants

Just as in human populations, individuals of a single species differ in traits that influence their survival in different environments. The genetic variation that underlies these trait differences may be especially important for exotic species that invade new areas, as populations without individuals that can tolerate the novel environment may not be able to establish and successfully reproduce. Similarly, individuals of native plants may differ in their ability to resist invasion or coexist with invaders because of genetic differences. The proposed research examines how the genetics of two plant species in California grasslands, one native and one exotic, affect the invasion success of the exotic species. Interactions between different genetic individuals of the two species will be examined in the presence and absence of insects that eat the plants to determine how environmental differences may also affect invasions by exotic plants. This project thus incorporates the relatively new field of community genetics (simultaneously examining genetic variation in multiple, co-occurring species) with invasion biology, and will provide important insights for related studies.

A postdoctoral researcher, graduate student, and undergraduate students will be trained and mentored in this research. Curriculum focused on invasive species biology will be developed for a K-12 program based at the Kellogg Biological Station in Michigan. A more complete understanding of the invasion process may help prevent future invasions that may be both ecologically and economically costly and also may aid in ensuring the success of intentional introductions (e.g., for biological control or cultivation).

The W.K. Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) of Michigan State University (MSU) has been awarded a grant to enhance educational and research opportunities by renovating nine ponds at the Experimental Pond Facility, improving cyber-infrastructure connectivity to the pond site, and installing emergency backup power at the facility. KBS is the largest off-campus unit of MSU and is known worldwide as a premier field site for research, education, and outreach in ecology and evolutionary biology. KBS provides access to diverse natural and managed habitats, many suitable for experimentation, together with modern laboratory facilities, to conduct terrestrial and aquatic ecology. Research activity at KBS has grown to the point that some of our facilities are stretched to the limit. The increasing numbers of resident and visiting researchers working at the Experimental Pond Site, along with a growing diversity and number of educational and outreach activities using this and other KBS facilities, are putting increasing demand on infrastructure and require that we upgrade and improve the facilities.

The nine ponds that will be renovated have undergone natural succession over the past 20+ years and have become unsuitable for many types of experimental studies due to low oxygen conditions and dense stands of submersed vegetation. Renovation of these ponds will allow KBS to continue to serve the needs of resident and visiting scientists, while ensuring flexibility for experimental design. Funds from this award also will be used to connect the Experimental Pond Facility to a 1Gb fiber optic backbone that now links KBS to MSU's main campus (fiber optic backbone installed in fall 2009 with MSU funds). This connection between the pond site and the KBS academic building will provide cyber-infrastructure support for data transfer between automated sensors at the pond site and other new instrumentation between the pond laboratory, the KBS main site, and MSU's campus. The backup electric generators to be installed at the Pond Laboratory with this award will ensure reliable temperature and air-supply to protect organisms (and experiments) during power outages.

Michigan State University (MSU) is awarded a grant to construct a new greenhouse at the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) to complement existing facilities at the Terrestrial-Aquatic Ecology Field Facility. The new greenhouse will enhance both educational and research opportunities at KBS. KBS combines access to diverse natural and managed habitats with modern laboratory and greenhouse facilities to provide an ideal site for research and educational activities in terrestrial and aquatic ecology. The existing greenhouse on the KBS main site is heavily used and has reached full capacity. The new facility will provide needed space for the increasing numbers of resident and visiting researchers requiring greenhouse access, along with a growing diversity and number of educational and outreach activities using this and other KBS facilities.

The existing KBS greenhouse was built in the 1920's as part of the W.K. Kellogg summer estate and has been renovated and updated several times in the past 20 years with NSF and MSU funding to create 3600 square feet of research space. The existing greenhouse is currently located at the KBS main site, near the Academic-Stack research building, which allows for convenient access to laboratory facilities, but is distant from the heavily used field research areas at KBS, including the Terrestrial-Aquatic Ecology Field Facility where the new greenhouse will be constructed. This facility currently includes the Plant Ecology Field Lab, the Experimental Pond Facility, a fenced common garden area (to exclude deer) that has the capacity to establish water and shade treatments, and open fields that can be used for experimental gardens and research plots. The construction of a new greenhouse at the Terrestrial-Aquatic Ecology Field Facility will allow KBS to continue to serve the needs of resident and visiting scientists, while enabling new research connections between terrestrial and aquatic ecologists. In addition, because of its proximity to existing field sites, the new greenhouse will facilitate studies requiring both greenhouse and field components. Finally, the combination of existing aquatic research facilities and the new greenhouse will provide an excellent arena for outreach and educational activities. KBS hosts tours that serve over 4,000 people annually; constructing a greenhouse facility to complete the Terrestrial-Aquatic Ecology Field Facility will provide a centralized location for tour groups to observe ongoing research in both terrestrial and aquatic systems. For more information please visit the KBS website at http://www.kbs.msu.edu/.

Abstract: Using the STEM Dimensions of Bioenergy Sustainability
to Bring Leading-edge Graduate Research to K-12 Learning Settings.

The intellectual focus of this new GK-12 project at the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) is on the ecological dimensions of bioenergy sustainability. Graduate students in Michigan State University?s Ecology, Evolutionary Biology & Behavior and Environmental Science & Public Policy programs who are engaged in STEM research at KBS will partner with teachers in the KBS K-12 Partnership for Science Literacy, the new Department of Energy Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), and the NSF Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) project on the Ecology of Agricultural Landscapes. Project activities include establishing schoolyard science research plots in K-12 Partner districts that mimic aspects of GLBRC research plots and serve as the foundation for a schoolyard research network. Fellows will work collaboratively with each other, their advisors, and project partners to incorporate their own research into K-12 research and inquiry activities that address Michigan and national science education standards.

Fellows will improve their ability to place their research in its broader societal and global contexts, to collaborate across disciplines, to integrate their research and teaching, and to communicate their research to professional, K-12 and public audiences. The opportunity to work collaboratively with fellows on authentic research related to pressing national needs will enhance the professional development of the K-12 partner teachers and enrich the education of K-12 students. This project will also enhance ongoing efforts at KBS to recruit a greater number and diversity of young people into STEM science disciplines.

Biological invasions result when plants, animals, and other species are introduced into regions where they did not historically occur. Invasive species cause over $137 billion in damages to native ecosystems and human interests around the world every year. Yet, despite their importance and over 50 years of intensive study, there is no consensus about what underlies their success. The goal of this project is to test one of the key hypotheses explaining the success of invasive species: biological invasions occur because invasive plant species are not strongly impacted by competitors, predators, and herbivores in areas outside their native range. Additionally, while newly introduced species may receive little damage from novel enemies, this phenomenon may be temporary -- invasive species may acquire more enemies over time. These ideas will be tested by planting native, non-invasive introduced, and invasive introduced plant species into field environments where the presence of enemies (herbivores and disease) has been experimentally manipulated. A key prediction is that removal of enemies will not benefit invasive species, compared to native and non-invasive introduced plants, as they are already experiencing little damage from enemies. Further, invasive species introduced longer ago may start to resemble native species and benefit from the removal of enemies.

Given the economic costs and environmental harm caused by biological invasions, it is important to understand what causes them to differ from native and non-invasive introduced species. This research will help determine what factors contribute to invasion success; doing so can help predict and prevent future invasions. This work also will help to predict the long-term consequences of invasions (e.g., whether they will continue to be problematic or whether the accumulation of enemies will eventually limit their impacts). Results will be shared broadly, including academic audiences, the general public, and K-12 students. Working with elementary, middle, and high school teachers in rural schools across southwest Michigan, the co-PI will develop lesson plans and workshops for student and teacher development, covering topics such as invasion biology, community ecology, and evolution. The co-PI will continue to mentor undergraduate and high school students pursuing scientific careers.

One little-publicized aspect of human-caused, global change has been a doubling of the availability of nitrogen to plants via the manufacture of fertilizer and the burning of fossil fuels. Nitrogen is the element that most strongly limits plant growth on land, so one ecological consequence is likely to be a rise in the total productivity of plants. A more surprising and opposite consequence could be a fall in a major, natural source of nitrogen for plants, the association between species of plants in the Pea Family, known as legumes; and root-dwelling bacteria, known as rhizobia, which convert nitrogen gas in the air into ammonium, a form of nitrogen that plants use to make proteins and other molecules essential for life. Legumes that can get more nitrogen directly from the soil tend less to associate with rhizobia, which demand carbohydrates from the plants. Over time, global change in nitrogen is thus predicted to reduce the abundance of rhizobia and drive the evolution of less cooperative rhizobia that make less nitrogen available to the plants. This could in turn increase reliance on synthetic fertilizers, and feedback upon the global nitrogen cycle. This project will use an existing, 22-year-old experiment in nitrogen addition experiment at the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site at the Kellogg Biological Station as a window onto what may happen to the natural nitrogen supply over the decades to come.

The broader impacts of this project include applications to agriculture, research training for students, and promotion of diversity in the scientific workforce. A number of cropping systems, including the rotation of soybeans and corn, use the association between legumes and rhizobia as a source of nitrogen. Inquiry-based labs for two large undergraduate courses will be based on the project and submitted for publication by Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology, a widely used resource for science educators. To promote equitability and diversity in the academic community, the project will create web-based materials and organize panel discussions that will guide undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds through the process of applying to and succeeding in graduate school.

The value of data increases as data sets grow longer, as this information can be used to answer new suites of questions that are different from those that originally motivated the data collection. This award supports a three-staged process that will engage early-career researchers to identify new frontiers for the application of long-term data sets, with a particular focus on long-term experiments. The lead investigators propose a unique approach to identifying these questions. Results from their approach will add significant value to ongoing investments in long-term data. They will advance the fields of ecology and ecosystem science by identifying new questions and by encouraging early-career researchers with novel perspectives to play a central role in defining directions for future long-term research activities.

Long-term experiments established through research networks or individual researchers provide some of the best illustrations of the value of long-term research, yet the potential applications of these experiments to diverse questions in ecology and evolution remain untapped. The investigators combine three activities to ensure an open and democratic development and prioritization of new research directions. An on-line survey will be used to engage the broad ecological community in identifying research questions uniquely addressed by long-term ecological experiments. Questions will be primarily closed-ended, but a small number of open-ended questions is necessary to ensure a comprehensive assessment of the community's viewpoints. Survey results will be summarized in collaboration with The Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, which delivers and analyzes online surveys to public, governmental, and academic sectors. The second stage of the project is a workshop, held at the Kellogg Biological Station, during which early-career researchers will present their own questions, evaluate and categorize questions from the survey, and use horizon scanning to identify leading questions and the rationale for their importance. A report synthesizing the approach and the leading research questions will be the final stage of the project. This report will first be reviewed by 'opinion leaders,' or senior researchers well established in the area of long-term ecological research. Their comments and critiques will be incorporated as appendices to the workshop report, which will be submitted for publication to a leading ecological journal. The proposed activities - a broad survey, a workshop, and a publication - will identify the next generation of questions that can capitalize on the funds already invested in long-term ecological research.

Plants can overcome environmental stress by dispersing to less stressful habitats, adapting to the stress, or associating with other organisms, such as microbes, that help reduce the stress. Although the third strategy of coping with stress has received very little attention, there is increasing evidence that it is both common and effective. Soil bacteria called rhizobia act like natural fertilizer by converting nitrogen in the atmosphere into a form that at least some plants can use. In return, those plants provide energy to the rhizobia. The goal of this study is to determine whether rhizobia help plants survive under extreme water stress. This research is important because increasing drought stress is predicted for much of the world under global climate change and rhizobia are one of the most likely ways that plants may overcome that stress. This has practical implications. For example, understanding the plant-rhizobium partnership may help reduce application of synthetic fertilizers or unnecessary use of water in agriculture systems. Results will be shared broadly through presentations at national and regional meetings as well as in high school classrooms and in newsletters for naturalists and land managers. The researchers will also create and publish inquiry-based activities for high school students that are aligned with the Advanced Placement (AP) biology Curriculum.

Specifically, this research will investigate how resource mutualists influence plant adaptation to soil moisture in the field. Using the legume-rhizobia mutualism as a model system, investigators aim to expand understanding of the mechanisms contributing to local adaptation, how species interactions influence local adaptation, and the traits underlying adaptation. Three specific questions will be addressed: (1) Are plants locally adapted to soil moisture conditions? (2) Do resource mutualists contribute to plant adaptation to soil moisture? And, (3) what plant traits drive adaptation to wet vs. dry environments? These questions will be tackled with an integrated set of reciprocal transplant experiments across multiple sites differing in soil moisture, with manipulative greenhouse experiments, and with molecular analyses.

Understanding how landscapes change following human disturbance is increasingly important. Large portions of the Northeastern and Midwestern parts of the US were formerly cleared of native vegetation to support agriculture, and many of the resulting farms were subsequently abandoned. This cycle of modification and abandonment continues. This project will capitalize on planned restoration of abandoned agricultural land in Michigan to establish long-term experiments. These experiments can be used by diverse researchers, including the investigators on this project, to understand how native communities and native biodiversity are restored. The research will engage citizens who are active in butterfly, bird, and plant monitoring programs, along with local K-12 teachers, undergraduate students, and graduate students. The project will strengthen a collaboration among research scientists, the Michigan Division of Natural Resources, and local land owners, who will be engaged in project development. Results from the study, including the experimental plots, will be used as exemplars for future community and private land restoration efforts.

The relationship between species diversity and community and ecosystem processes is of fundamental importance in the fields of community and ecosystem ecology. Recent research includes genetic diversity and its influence through potential feedbacks between genetic and species diversity. The large-scale and long-term experimental manipulations that will be established through this project will provide a unique testing ground for understanding the relationships between species and genetic diversity and how these aspects of biodiversity affect population, community, ecosystem, and evolutionary processes under realistic field conditions. To date, most studies have been small in scale and short in duration. Twelve former agricultural fields will be restored to native prairie and experiments will be established that manipulate both species and genetic diversity. This is a unique opportunity to overlay experimental treatments on large-scale restoration. Short-term results will test questions about how genetic diversity affects species diversity in newly assembling communities and how species and genetic diversity interact to affect the establishment, growth, and extinction of focal populations. Although rarely applied in genetic diversity-species diversity work, population demography and evolutionary ecology approaches hold great promise for identifying mechanistic links driving feedbacks between genetic diversity and species diversity. Over the longer-term these experiments will be available to diverse researchers to pursue wide-ranging ecological questions.

Agriculture is the dominant land use under direct management by people, and it is one of the biggest agents of global change, with far-reaching impacts on human welfare and the environment. The application of ecological knowledge to improve sustainable agricultural ecosystems remains a recognized grand challenge for environmental science. Since 1988, research at the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) LTER has addressed this challenge for row-crop ecosystems and landscapes, by seeking to understand the fundamental ecological underpinnings of these highly managed ecosystems and to reveal ways that ecological knowledge can enhance the long-term sustainability of production agriculture. This renewal award builds on past work to launch an effort to better understand the long-term stability of key ecosystem services afforded by agriculture, with an emphasis on three major drivers: climate change, changes in the science of land management for crop production, and invasive species. Proposed research bears directly on agricultural and environmental management and policies at scales ranging from local to global. The study of agricultural systems also informs ecology because few other ecosystems have such a degree of simplification and control of major environmental drivers. Training graduate students and postdocs is an important component of this project, as is providing research experiences for undergraduates. KBS scientists also will continue to work with K-12 science teachers through an established partnership with 11 nearby school districts. Outreach and extension activities will reach a broad community of stakeholders, and will include a new emphasis on farmers and those who influence farmer decisions.

The major scientific foci of the KBS LTER are vulnerability and resilience of cropping systems to drivers of change, and how ecological theory can help design more sustainable crop production. Two overarching questions motivate the research: 1) How do changing environmental drivers affect the resilience of key ecosystem services including crop yield and profitability as well as environmental and socioecological benefits, and 2) To what extent can ecological knowledge help maintain the robust and reliable delivery of these services? Key ecosystem services include crop yield but also extend more broadly to climate stabilization (greenhouse gas emissions), water quality (eutrophication), pest suppression (insect herbivory and predation), and soil fertility (plant-microbe-soil interactions). Knowledge gaps identified from research to date will be addressed with new research lines that include rainfall manipulation experiments, watershed observations, and examinations of rapid evolution of plant-microorganism associations, predator-prey dynamics newly influenced by invasive species and novel pesticides, and long-term changes in farmer attitudes and behaviors.

Evolution was once assumed to only occur slowly over long time scales, but many recent studies have found that rapid adaptation (adaptation that occurs over timescales observable by humans) can occur across a wide range of species and in many biological systems, and can affect ecological interactions and processes. Theory predicts that rapid adaptation can also potentially affect the establishment of species in new habitats, but there is little evidence from natural systems to support this. This project will investigate rapid adaptation in recently established plant populations, as well as how symbiotic microbes might influence plant rapid adaptation. By conducting this work at an ecological restoration site, this project will not only expand our understanding of basic ecological processes, but results of the project can be applied to make restorations more successful. This is important, as the restoration of degraded landscapes can play a critical role in biodiversity conservation, yet species sown into restorations often fail to establish. Additionally, this project includes the mentoring of undergraduate students and development of online educational materials for K-12 students.

By using field experiments, reciprocal transplants, and greenhouse studies, this project aims to expand understanding of the role of rapid adaptation in population establishment in several ways. First, although empirical evidence suggests that evolution may occur rapidly enough to influence establishment, few studies consider the demographic effects of adaptation. This study will examine the demographic effects of adaptation in recently established plant populations. Second, this work aims to identify the selective agents and traits responsible for local adaptation, which few studies attempt to do. By combining selection analyses with reciprocal transplant experiments, this study will both predict evolutionary responses and test whether those predicted evolutionary shifts have actually occurred. Finally, this work will investigate the role of microbial mutualists in plant rapid adaptation by examining interactions between legumes and nitrogen-fixing bacteria and how traits mediating interactions with rhizobia have evolved in response to field environments that differ in soil nutrient availability and rhizobium community properties. The results of this work will elucidate the mechanisms underlying the relationship between rapid adaptation and population establishment.