LTER: Integrating plant community and ecosystem responses to chronic global change drivers: Toward an explanation of patterns and improved global predictions

Many global change drivers, such as increasing air and soil temperatures or increased concentrations of carbon dioxide, lead to chronic alterations in resource availability. Scientists anticipate that the magnitude and direction of ecosystem responses to these changes will be non-linear. To predict responses to GCDs across a wide variety of ecosystems, the working group is taking advantage of 101 similar experiments done across 17 LTER sites, all of which have examined plant community responses to changes in resource availability. The group aims to discover whether changes in plant community structure, productivity, and carbon storage are predictive of shifts in ecosystem function.