How do we decide the most important questions to ask? How do we innovate? What makes an idea, or a field, take hold and persist? How do we know that we are advancing the field of ecology in the most efficient and effective ways possible?
Results/Conclusions
In the past five years, our research group has pursued ideas that have historically been recognized, but generally been written off as fringe. For instance, where most research is generally concerned with leaf structure and function when it is dry and sunny, we are studying when it is wet and cloudy. Where most research on photosynthesis is conducted on leaves, we are studying green stems. And where most research on plant water uptake is focused on determining where in soil that water was taken up from, we are studying the seasonal origin of the water taken up.
Studying what happens when it is wet may not be intuitive in a time when we are experiencing unprecedented droughts. And the predominant thinking is that low quantities of light limit photosynthesis when it is cloudy, so it is not clear that such conditions should contribute significantly to photosynthetic carbon uptake. Our research indicates that these underappreciated processes have important roles in ecosystem function in relation to climate. Furthermore, we find that framing our thinking in this way ultimately drives compelling new questions and adds to the breadth and depth of our understanding.
Nevertheless, we present our approach and these examples not as the most efficient or effective, but rather as a means of inviting discussion from the ecology community that prompts us to reflect on how we advance our science in a time of unprecedented global change.