OOS 58
The Ecological Impacts of Drought As Revealed Through Experimental Approaches

Thursday, August 13, 2015: 8:00 AM-11:30 AM
310, Baltimore Convention Center
Organizer:
Melinda Smith
Co-organizers:
Osvaldo E. Sala , Alan Knapp and Yiqi Luo
Moderator:
Jeffrey S. Dukes
For most terrestrial ecosystems, climate change induced increases in the frequency and severity of drought are likely to have the greatest ecological impact. Drought, defined by the IPCC as a “prolonged absence or marked deficiency of precipitation” can cause rapid and widespread mortality of individuals, long-term changes in community structure and large-scale alterations in ecosystem functions. Our current understanding of the ecological impacts of drought, which is the knowledge base we must draw from to forecast future impacts, is based primarily on opportunistic studies and site-level experiments. Opportunistic studies are often conducted after a natural drought has occurred and tend to capture only those events that have large ecological impacts. Experiments allow for greater control and have been instrumental in revealing mechanisms of ecological response. The purpose of this organized oral session is to address our current understanding of the impacts of drought through experimentation. The session will bring together researchers from around the globe that employ a variety of experimental approaches to provide a state-of-the-knowledge of the ecological impacts of drought.
8:00 AM
Contrasting above-belowground responses to long-term precipitation and nitrogen manipulations in a desert grassland
Osvaldo E. Sala, Arizona State University; Laureano A. Gherardi, Arizona State University; Josh Haussler, Arizona State University; Lara G. Reichmann, USDA, Agricultural Research Service; Ferran Garcia-Pichel, Arizona State University; Yevgeniy Marusenko, University of California, Irvine
8:20 AM
“Frequency versus amount” – Understanding the impact of rainfall extremes on Australian grasslands
Sally A. Power, Western Sydney University; Kirk Barnett, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, University of Western Sydney; Raul Ochoa Hueso, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, University of Western Sydney; Ellie Gibson-Forty, Cardiff University; Julien Shawyer, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, University of Western Sydney; Valentina Arca, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, University of Western Sydney
8:40 AM
What can drought experiments tell us about the ecology and management of dryland vegetation?
Anja Linstädter, University of Cologne; Edwin Mudongo, University of Cologne, University of Limpopo; Jan C. Ruppert, University of Cologne
9:00 AM
Within and among species diversity as insurance against extreme drought in a coordinated distributed mesocosm experiment across Europe
Juergen Kreyling, Greifswald University; Anke Jentsch, University of Bayreuth; The SIGNAL-consortium, BiodivERsA
9:20 AM
Leaf death during drought: quantification of lethal leaf water status and its anatomical and physiological correlates in Southern California native species
Grace P. John, University of Texas, Austin; Christine Scoffoni, California State University; Rosa Menjivar, UCLA; Lawren Sack, UCLA
9:40 AM
9:50 AM
Resistance and mortality in tropical forest trees during experimental drought
Patrick Meir, University of Edinburgh, Australian National University; Lucy Rowland, University of Edinburgh; ACL da Costa, Emílio Goeldi Museum; Steel Vasconcelos, Embrapa; Maurizio Mencuccini, ICREA - CREAF and University of Edinburgh; Bradley Christoffersen, Los Alamos National Laboratory; Leandro Ferreira, Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi
10:30 AM
ANPP-precipitation relationships in multi-year drought experiments in natural ecosystems
Marc Estiarte, CREAF-CSIC; Sara Vicca, University of Antwerp; Josep Peñuelas, Center for Research on Ecology and Forestry Applications (CREAF-CSIC); Michael Bahn, University of Innsbruck; Claus Beier, Norwegian Institute of Water Research; Bridget A. Emmett, CEH; Philip A. Fay, USDA, Agricultural Research Service; Paul J. Hanson, Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Rolan Hasibeder, Institute of Ecology; Jaime Kigel, Hebrew University; Gyorgy Kröel-Dulay, MTA Centre for Ecological Research; KL Larsen, University of Copenhagen; Eszter Lellei-Kovács, MTA Centre for Ecological Research; Jean Marc Limousin, CNRS, Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive CEFE; Romà Ogaya, CREAF-CSIC; Jean Marc Ourcival, CNRS, Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive CEFE; Osvaldo E. Sala, Arizona State University; Inger K. Schmidt, University of Copenhagen; Marcelo Sternberg, Tel Aviv University; Katja Tielbörger, University of Tuebingen; Albert Tietema, University of Amsterdam; Ivan Janssens, University of Antwerp
10:50 AM
Drought-Net: A global network to experimentally assess terrestrial ecosystem sensitivity to extreme drought
Melinda Smith, Colorado State University; Richard Phillips, Indiana University; Osvaldo E. Sala, Arizona State University