Thursday, August 9, 2018
ESA Exhibit Hall, New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center
Shishir Paudel1, Rajen Bajgain2, Jeffrey Basara3, Elizabeth Boughton4, Carl J. Bernacchi5, Nuria Gomez-Casanovas6, Samuel D. Chamberlain7, Evan H. DeLucia8, Laura E Goodman1, Prasanna Gowda9, Jed P. Sparks10, Hilary Swain4, Pradeep Wagle9, Xiangming Xiao2 and Jean L. Steiner9, (1)Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, (2)Center of Spatial Analysis, Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, (3)School of Meteorology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, (4)Archbold Biological Station, Venus, FL, (5)Department of Plant Biology/ Global Change and Photosynthesis Research Unit, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, (6)Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment; Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, (7)Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management, University of California Berkley, Berkley, CA, (8)Plant Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, (9)Grazinglands Research Laboratory, USDA-ARS, El Reno, OK, (10)Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Background/Question/Methods Perennial grassland management affects multiple ecosystem services such as food and fuel from biomass production and climate regulation through carbon sequestration. However, ecosystem service tradeoffs from perennial grassland management are not fully understood. We quantified aboveground dry biomass as a surrogate for provisioning services and canopy fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) as a surrogate for regulating services, in grasslands with two different management systems and climatic conditions over two year periods. These grasslands are located in MacArthur Agro-ecology Research Center (MAERC), central Florida (humid subtropical climate) and Grazinglands Research Laboratory, El Reno, western Oklahoma (sub-humid continental climate), managed as low-input (unfertilized) diverse native perennial grasslands or fertilized, intensively managed (improved) perennial non-native grass monoculture. Aboveground net primary productivity was estimated through field clipping and optical remote sensing methods and monthly and annual fluxes of CO2 and CH4 were quantified by using eddy covariance technology.
Results/Conclusions
Preliminary results from MAERC grasslands indicate high diversity native perennial grasslands provide greater provisioning services compared to improved grasslands. Improved grasslands are net CO2 sinks, sequestering greater total carbon compared to native grasslands, but they are strong CH4 sources. Results from El Reno grasslands provide mixed results with higher provisioning services from native grassland in the first year, while improved grassland provide higher provisioning service in the second year. However, native grassland provides greater net provisioning services compared to improved grassland. Both grassland types served as net CO2 sinks but the amount varies with grassland types and year. Our results highlight that grassland management practices substantially influence the provisioning and regulating services in agricultural landscapes. While highly diverse native perennial grasslands may provide more sustainable provisioning services, intensively managed monocultures of non-native grasses may sequester more CO2 compared to native grasslands. These results highlight the necessity for long-term measurement of ecosystem service provisions from differently managed perennial grasslands in the agricultural landscapes. Understanding how differentially managed grasslands influence ecosystem services is critical for incorporating management tradeoffs into decision making and a key to sustaining grassland resilience and multiple ecosystem services at local, regional, and global scales.
