Changes in soil moisture and temperature resulting from predicted climate changes will impact primary producers, soil communities and ecological processes in grassland ecosystems. Our objectives are to determine how prairie grasses, soil organisms and key soil processes respond to different soil moisture and temperature regimes and to identify the potential consequences of these responses for ecosystem function in light of the predictions of global climate change models. We use naturally occurring gradients of soil moisture and/or temperature, at two very different scales, as experimental "treatments" to address the controls which moisture and temperature impose on ecological processes in grasslands. At a regional scale, reciprocal transplants of large intact soil cores and associated plants between sites with different climatic conditions will address the effects of altered soil moisture and temperature on selected response variables. At a local scale, comparisons of tallgrass prairie sites with differentsoil moisture availability and temperature will be made. Response variables in both experiments include net primary production, plant biomass C and N, litter decomposition rates, soil invertebrate numbers and composition, soil microbial biomass and activity, and soil C and N pools.
Click HERE for the 1994 NIGEC Annual Project Report
Click HERE for the 1995 NIGEC Annual Project Report
