{"id":73,"date":"2021-08-24T15:30:42","date_gmt":"2021-08-24T15:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2021\/?p=73"},"modified":"2021-10-21T13:56:57","modified_gmt":"2021-10-21T13:56:57","slug":"ecosystems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2021\/ecosystems\/","title":{"rendered":"Investigating Ecological Impacts on a National Scale"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Burning fossil fuels, fertilizing crops and lawns, developing urban areas and other human activities are increasing environmental concentrations of essential elements such as carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous. All organisms need these elements to survive, but an imbalance alters water quality, biodiversity and evolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To equip researchers and policymakers to study, predict and manage this ever-changing balance of elements and its impact on ecosystems regionally and nationally, Jessica Corman is using a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation\u2019s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research to build a first-of-its-kind national database that includes information from streams and lakes and the organisms that reside in them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The database will unlock major potential in ecological stoichiometry, a framework that explores the mismatch between environmental elements available and what organisms need. The approach is useful in small-scale investigations, but larger-scope projects lack a comprehensive repository.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nebraska team members Steven Thomas, Jessica Corman, Katie Anania and Jennifer Clarke.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nebraska is collaborating with the University of Wyoming, Central Arkansas University and Middlebury College to fill that gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s exciting about this project is that we\u2019re compiling new and existing datasets that are located in different places or collected by different institutions in order to ask broader-scale questions about ecology and evolution,\u201d said Corman, assistant professor of natural resources. \u201cThis is the first time this type of work is being done on a regional or national scale.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The open-source database, Stoichiometric Traits of Organisms in their Chemical Habitats, will include information on multiple scales, from the elemental composition of a single organism to that of the organism\u2019s entire environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Researchers will explore how elemental mismatches affect water quality, the food webs and other ecological processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A partnership with Nebraska\u2019s School of Art, Art History and Design will help better communicate the science of ecological stoichiometry. Katie Anania, assistant professor of art history, will guide student scientists and artists in designing better methods of graphically communicating multivariable data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To boost diversity in STEM, the team is collaborating with the Society of Freshwater Science\u2019s Instars and Emerge Program, which supports students from underrepresented groups who are interested in freshwater science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NSF\u2019s EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program: Track-2 Focused EPSCoR Collaborations funds this project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Burning fossil fuels, fertilizing crops and lawns, developing urban areas and other human activities are increasing environmental concentrations of essential elements such as carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous. All organisms need these elements to survive, but an imbalance alters water quality, biodiversity and evolution. To equip researchers and policymakers to study, predict and manage this ever-changing… Continue reading Investigating Ecological Impacts on a National Scale<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":377,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[138,105],"tags":[80,75,79,72,78,73,74,76,77],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grand-challenges","category-sustainable-food-and-water-security","tag-art","tag-ecological-stoichiometry","tag-ecology","tag-jessica-corman","tag-national-database","tag-national-science-foundation","tag-nsf-established-program-to-stimulate-competitive-research","tag-science-communication","tag-sustainable-food-and-water-security","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":529,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions\/529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}