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Terrestrial ecosystems obtain energy in the form of carbon‐containing molecules. Quantifying energy acquisition and dissipation throughout an ecosystem may be useful for describing their resistance and resilience to disturbances. Three longleaf pine savannas with different vegetation composition – a result of variation in soil moisture and land use legacy – were used as a case study to test energy‐based metrics of ecosystem metabolic function. Available energy from gross ecosystem exchange of CO2 (GEE) and its dissipation into metabolic energy density (EM) and energy storage were used to identify differences in drought recovery over an eight‐year period. Sites with higher plant functional diversity in the understory stored more energy and lowered their EM by ~20% when adapting to drought. In contrast, the site with greater abundance of woody understory and overstory species relied on stored energy twice as often as the more diverse sites. The absence of native understory species, due to anthropogenic legacy, prolonged ecosystem‐scale drought recovery by one year. This study provides the tools to understand differences in site metabolic energy dynamics and has the potential to identify site characteristics that indicate greater vulnerability to disturbances. Metabolic energy density can be applied to any global ecosystem and provides a first step to describe coupled carbon and energy allocation in ecosystems, which may be used to further refine ecological theory and its management implications.
Susanne Wiesner; Paul C. Stoy; Christina L. Staudhammer; Gregory Starr. Using Metabolic Energy Density Metrics to Understand Differences in Ecosystem Function During Drought. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 2020, 125, 1 .
AMA StyleSusanne Wiesner, Paul C. Stoy, Christina L. Staudhammer, Gregory Starr. Using Metabolic Energy Density Metrics to Understand Differences in Ecosystem Function During Drought. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences. 2020; 125 (3):1.
Chicago/Turabian StyleSusanne Wiesner; Paul C. Stoy; Christina L. Staudhammer; Gregory Starr. 2020. "Using Metabolic Energy Density Metrics to Understand Differences in Ecosystem Function During Drought." Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 125, no. 3: 1.
Dairy farms are predominantly carbon sources, due to high livestock emissions from enteric fermentation and manure. Integrated crop–livestock systems (ICLSs) have the potential to offset these greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as recycling products within the farm boundaries is prioritized. Here, we quantify seasonal and annual greenhouse gas budgets of an ICLS dairy farm in Wisconsin USA using satellite remote sensing to estimate vegetation net primary productivity (NPP) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines to calculate farm emissions. Remotely sensed annual vegetation NPP correlated well with farm harvest NPP (R2 = 0.9). As a whole, the farm was a large carbon sink, owing to natural vegetation carbon sinks and harvest products staying within the farm boundaries. Dairy cows accounted for 80% of all emissions as their feed intake dominated farm feed supply. Manure emissions (15%) were low because manure spreading was frequent throughout the year. In combination with soil conservation practices, ICLS farming provides a sustainable means of producing nutritionally valuable food while contributing to sequestration of atmospheric CO2. Here, we introduce a simple and cost-efficient way to quantify whole-farm GHG budgets, which can be used by farmers to understand their carbon footprint, and therefore may encourage management strategies to improve agricultural sustainability.
Susanne Wiesner; Alison J. Duff; Ankur R. Desai; Kevin Panke-Buisse. Increasing Dairy Sustainability with Integrated Crop–Livestock Farming. Sustainability 2020, 12, 765 .
AMA StyleSusanne Wiesner, Alison J. Duff, Ankur R. Desai, Kevin Panke-Buisse. Increasing Dairy Sustainability with Integrated Crop–Livestock Farming. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (3):765.
Chicago/Turabian StyleSusanne Wiesner; Alison J. Duff; Ankur R. Desai; Kevin Panke-Buisse. 2020. "Increasing Dairy Sustainability with Integrated Crop–Livestock Farming." Sustainability 12, no. 3: 765.
Global ecosystems vary in their function, and therefore resilience to disturbance, as a result of their location on Earth, structure, and anthropogenic legacy. Resilience can therefore be difficult to describe solely based on energy partitioning, as it fails to effectively describe how ecosystems use available resources, such as soil moisture. Maximum entropy production (MEP) has been shown to be a better metric to describe these differences as it relates energy use efficiencies of ecosystems to the availability of resources. We studied three sites in a longleaf pine ecosystem with varying levels of anthropogenic legacy and biodiversity, all of which were exposed to extreme drought. We quantified their resilience from radiative, metabolic and overall MEP ratios. Sites with anthropogenic legacy had ~ 10 % lower overall and metabolic energy use efficiency compared to more biodiverse sites. This resulted in lower resilience and a delay in recovery from drought by ~ 1 year. Additionally, a set of entropy ratios to determine metabolic and overall energy use efficiency explained more clearly site-specific ecosystem function, whereas the radiative entropy budget gave more insights about structural complexities at the sites. Our study provides foundational evidence of how MEP can be used to determine resiliency across ecosystems globally.
Susanne Wiesner; Christina L. Staudhammer; Paul C. Stoy; Lindsay R. Boring; Gregory Starr. Quantifying energy use efficiency via maximum entropy production: A case study from longleaf pine ecosystems. 2018, 2018, 1 -30.
AMA StyleSusanne Wiesner, Christina L. Staudhammer, Paul C. Stoy, Lindsay R. Boring, Gregory Starr. Quantifying energy use efficiency via maximum entropy production: A case study from longleaf pine ecosystems. . 2018; 2018 ():1-30.
Chicago/Turabian StyleSusanne Wiesner; Christina L. Staudhammer; Paul C. Stoy; Lindsay R. Boring; Gregory Starr. 2018. "Quantifying energy use efficiency via maximum entropy production: A case study from longleaf pine ecosystems." 2018, no. : 1-30.
Drought can affect forest structure and function at various spatial and temporal scales. Forest response and recovery from drought may be a result of position within landscape. Longleaf pine forests in the United States have been observed to reduce their carbon sequestration capacity during drought. We collected eddy covariance data at the ends of an edaphic longleaf pine gradient (xeric and mesic sites) over seven years; two years of normal rainfall were followed by 2.5 years of drought, then 2.5 years of normal or slightly above-average rainfall. Drought played a significant role in reducing the physiological capacity of the sites and was compounded when prescribed fire occurred during the same periods. The mesic site has a 40% greater basal area then the xeric site, which accounts for its larger sequestration capacity; however, both sites show the same range of variance in fluxes over the course of the study. Following drought, both sites became carbon sinks. However, the xeric site had a longer carry-over effect and never returned to pre-drought function. Although this study encompassed seven years, we argue that longer studies with greater spatial variance must be undertaken to develop a more comprehensive understanding of forest response to changing climate.
Gregory Starr; Christina L. Staudhammer; Susanne Wiesner; Sujit Kunwor; Henry W. Loescher; Andres F. Baron; Andrew Whelan; Robert J. Mitchell; Lindsay Boring. Carbon Dynamics of Pinus palustris Ecosystems Following Drought. Forests 2016, 7, 98 .
AMA StyleGregory Starr, Christina L. Staudhammer, Susanne Wiesner, Sujit Kunwor, Henry W. Loescher, Andres F. Baron, Andrew Whelan, Robert J. Mitchell, Lindsay Boring. Carbon Dynamics of Pinus palustris Ecosystems Following Drought. Forests. 2016; 7 (12):98.
Chicago/Turabian StyleGregory Starr; Christina L. Staudhammer; Susanne Wiesner; Sujit Kunwor; Henry W. Loescher; Andres F. Baron; Andrew Whelan; Robert J. Mitchell; Lindsay Boring. 2016. "Carbon Dynamics of Pinus palustris Ecosystems Following Drought." Forests 7, no. 12: 98.