LTER: Producers, Consumers and Disturbance Response of Primary Producers and Primary Consumers to Environmental Change – From small-scale disturbances to seasonal and long-term changes
Project Description
This LTER SPARC Synthesis Working Group seeks to bring together LTER researchers interested in understanding how disturbances and environmental change across timescales are altering the production and transfer of organic matter from primary producers to herbivores. All ecosystems are subject to temporal variations in biological production and consumption over broad time scales (from diel to decadal) in response to changes in the environment. Understanding the flow of C and energy from primary producers to their consumers provides essential information about ecosystem properties and functions. Both terrestrial and aquatic ecologists have long been assessing ecosystem primary production and the amount of autotrophic C transferred to higher trophic levels, irrespective of how challenging it is to assess these transfer rates. The study of primary producers and consumer interactions is essential to fully understand and predict the ecosystems response to anticipated increased disturbances and environmental changes driven by anthropogenic activities. Together we will synthesize the current status and identify future needs to establish a mechanistic and predictive understanding of the trophic interactions from primary producers to their consumers.
Principal Investigator(s)
Project Dates
Start: January 1, 2023
End: December 31, 2023
active
Participants
- Noe Castaneda
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Max Castorani
- University of Virginia
- James Hogan
- University of Florida
- Kimberly J. Komatsu
- University of North Carolina
- Maowei Liang
- university of minnesota twin cities
- Charlotte Malmborg
- Harvard University
- Pierre Marrec
- University of Rhode Island
- Susanne Menden-Deuer
- University of Rhode Island
- Tatiana A. Rynearson
- University of Rhode Island
- Warren Sconiers
- University of Colorado Boulder
- Bradley Strickland
- Virginia Institute of Marine Science
- Suzanne L. Strom
- Western Washington University
- Mike R. Stukel
- Florida State University
- Grace Wilkinson
- University of Wisconsin, Madison