 | For Massimo Pigliucci's graduate students and post-docs: click
here.
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Travis Belote (working with Jake Weltzin): "Response of
understory plant communities to elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide."
Travis is conducting his research at a
large-scale, Free-Atmosphere
Carbon dioxide Enrichment experiment at Oak
Ridge National Laboratory, where CO2 gas is being
experimentally applied to a sweetgum plantation. Travis' focus will be on
understory vegetation, which is dominatedly almost exclusively by
non-native, invasive grasses (e.g., Microstegium vimineum) and woody
plants (e.g., Lonicera japonica).
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Patrice Cole (working with Jake
Weltzin) is investigating the ecological
role of Microstegium vimineum (Japanese grass), an invasive, annual
grass of Asiatic origin, in eastern United States ecosystems. Microstegium
was first observed in the western hemisphere in Knoxville, Tennessee, in
1918. Although it is suspected of rapidly displacing native plant species,
data to support these claims are lacking. Inadequate knowledge of its
physiological and ecological niche also constrains the development of
effective control strategies. Patrice's research is intended to develop more
information on the environmental requirements and ecological effects of this
non-native plant to better prioritize it as a land management concern and to
identify potential control measures.
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Leigh Thomas, MS candidate (working with
Jake Weltzin), is interested in the role of precipitation seasonality, soil
substrate, and the identity of the plant neighborhood (and in particular Eragrostis
lehmanniana, which dominates the landscape in semi-arid grasslands on
the Santa Rita Experimental Range, AZ - upper right) in affecting invasions
by woody legumes in semi-arid systems. As an undergraduate in Jake's
lab, Leigh's project focused on "The
effects of Eragrostis and
rock fragment densities on soil moisture distribution and Prosopis
survival," wherein she investigated the response of mesquite
from the SW United States to gradients in soil moisture generated
by different volumes of rock fragments in the soil, and different
densities of E. lehmanniana.
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