JLab Studying global change, one organism at a time

Temperatures are rising. The amount of reactive nitrogen in the biosphere is increasing. We know global change is here, but we don't know these changes will impact biological communities. If a grassland is overfertilized by atmospheric deposition, how will that affect its biodiversity? As temperatures increase, how might that change the community structure of kelp forests? How does excess nitrogen shift grassland community structure? These questions that the CORRE Project wants to address.   

Our first paper presents a conceptual framework for testing community responses to global change drivers (Avolio et al. 2015). We are currently conducting a meta-analysis of over 100 datasets to look at the impacts of nutrient enrichment on plant communities.