James Ehleringer Department of Biology 257 S 1400 E University of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah 84112
This RFI was developed in coordination with integrated efforts at the national level led by the Consortium for Connectivity at Continental Scales (3CS) and Consortium of Regional Ecological Observatories (COREO). It contains additional details related to the proposed gradient sites within the Great Basin Domain (Domain 15), but it is otherwise consistent with the hypotheses, objectives, and measurement schemes of the national 3CS and COREO documents.
We pose three hypotheses that will be addressed at Great Basin Domain gradient sites as part of NEON Science and as elaborated in the 3CS and COREO national document efforts:
Climate hypothesis. Changes in the timing, form, and seasonality of precipitation as well as changes in drought frequency and intensity will alter ecosystem structure and function, ultimately leading to changes in species distributions.
Land-use change and urbanization hypothesis. As a result of the impact of humans on the landscape through land-use change and urbanization, sensible heat, latent heat, and CO2 fluxes will increase across a chronosequence of urban/suburban sites; and land-use changes result in shifts in the distributions and concentrations of resources that will feedback on the capacities of native ecosystems to provide goods and services.
Infectious disease and invasive species hypotheses: (a) Climate and land-use interact to alter the mode, rate of spread, and impact of invasive species on natural and managed ecosystems; (b) the emergence and expansion of diseases or their vectors/hosts can be predicted by an understanding of the interactions between disturbance, climate, and human dynamics; (c) the impact of disease will affect ecosystem function and services and human health.
The climate, land-use, infectious disease and invasive species hypothesis can be addressed using a combination of wildland, domain and wildland toolboxes. Here we propose a mix or shuffling of the tower combinations slightly different from the ISEP but more cost effective: wildland sites
1 advanced tower at Onaqui-Benmore (wildland) in sagebrush steppe (wildland toolbox)
1 relocatable tower at Onaqui-Benmore (wildland) in cheatgrass (domain toolbox)
1 relocatable tower at Onaqui-Benmore (wildland) in sagebrush-juniper (domain toolbox)
1 basic tower at Onaqui-Benmore (wildland) in experiment plot (wildland toolbox)
1 basic tower at Onaqui-Benmore (wildland) in sagebrush replicate (wildland toolbox) gradient sites
1 relocatable tower at lower elevation Red Butte Canyon (gradient) (domain toolbox)
1 relocatable tower at upper elevation Red Butte Canyon (gradient) (domain toolbox)
1 relocatable tower at Great Basin National Park (gradient) (continental toolbox)
1 relocatable tower at Reynolds Creek (gradient) (domain toolbox)
1 basic tower at Hart Mountain (gradient) (domain toolbox)
1 basic tower at Hanford (gradient) (domain toolbox)
1 basic tower at South Ruby Mountain (gradient) (domain toolbox)
1 advanced tower at Murray (urban gradient) (continental toolbox)
1 relocatable tower at West Jordan (urban gradient) (continental toolbox)
1 relocatable tower at Kennecott (urban gradient) (continental toolbox)