October 29, 2004 - Collaboratories: Ecouraging Remote Scientific Collaboration - Science

September 2000 We will be back out at Konza on the week-end of 15th - 18th to take soil samples from our decomposition experiment. These samples will be analyzed for soil biota, plus physical and chemical attributes.

November 1999 Bill Hunt represented the US program at the 2nd Award Holders Meeting in Grange-over-Sands. You can read more about the meeting here.

Bill was keen to share his knowledge to participants in the UK Programme. Here he is seen demonstrating his years of experience to Mark Toal (left).

October 1999 Most of our work has concentrated on analysing the samples we brought in from Konza in May.
Peter Mullin has tentatively identified 241 morphospecies of nematodes from the collection site so far. Considering the samples came from six plant species and a small area, that's a remarkable number of species. Dorota Porazinska and Pilar Tillberg carried out the enumeration and identification of nematodes at the trophic group level.

Steve Blecker has carried our the following analyses on subsamples of soil:
Microbial biomass extractions and analysis for C and N.
C and N mineralization study over a 28 day incubation period, measuring respired CO2 at intervals throughout the study and N at the beginning and end of the study.
Loss-On-Ignition to estimate organic matter.
Dry combustion with an elemental analyzer to determine C and N.
Texture analysis has been carried out using the hydrometer method.

Nicole DeCrappeo has carried out preliminary sampling for entomopathogenic nematodes on 1, 4, and 20 year burned plots from Konza. Isolation of nematodes from these samples is in progress at the moment.

Bill Hunt writes about the modeling progress: My strategy has been to update our (1987) detrital food web model (Biology and Fertility of Soils 3:57-68) by 1) converting from an N budget to a dynamic model by including equations for plant growth, trophic transfers, and mineralization, 2) including both C and N cycling with variable C/N ratios, and 3) using optimization to estimate parameters necessary to fit the model to data. We have carried out an exercise using data from shortgrass prairie, to get ready for when the data from the Konza site become available. We fitted the model (steady state) to three data sets-- a C4 grass, and C3 grass, and the C4 under elevated CO2. We evaluated the model based on its predictions about microbial and faunal differences among the three data sets, and its predictions about the effects on plant growth of including different combinations of fauna and microflora. Then we used the model to examine the concepts of keystone species (rather, keystone functional groups) and redundancy. Most groups were non-keystone, and several were redundant.

Heather Reed and Tim Seastedt are leading the study of diversity effects on decomposition. A year ago five plots were set up in systems of relatively high plant diversity and another five were constructed in systems of relatively low plant diversity. Microclimates were homogenized via litter additions and canopy height standardization. Litterbags and wood dowels were placed in each plot in the spring and harvested this fall to assess decomposition in each type of system. This spring rainout shelters were placed over half of each plot. These were removed at the end of the growing season when substrates were harvested. After this first year, no significant effect of diversity on decomposition was found for root litter or wood dowels; however, a trend of greater decomposition on higher diverse plots was found. Surface foilage litter did show significantly greater decomposition on higher diverse plots. Rain out shelters had no significant effect on decomposition, however, a significant interaction was found between "drought" and level of diversity for wood dowel decomposition.

August 1999 Mark St. John attended the "Acarology Summer Program" at Ohio State University in August to learn more about mite life histories, systematics and identification. He is presently working on sorting mites and Collembola to major taxonomic groups and producing slides for species identifications.

July 1999 Andy Parsons attended the masterclass on 'The Application of Isotopic Techniques' held on 30 June, 1-2 July in Merlewood. It was a great workshop, well taught and with a good group of people attending. Andy is now applying what he learned to a lab experiment.

May 1999 From May 16th to June 2nd 1999, we were at Konza for a concerted field campaign! Click here to see a picture of all those who were sampling.