Understanding ecosystem response to environmental change is a key challenge to ecologists and natural resources managers today. Intrinsic in that challenge, is a poor societal knowledge of ecosystem complexity and response to disturbances. Recently, conceptual modeling of ecosystem structure and function has been proven useful to understand some aspects of ecosystem complexity and responses to disturbance. Given the rapid pace of global change, transferring this concept to the general public and to day-to-day decision makers is considered a national priority. In 2006, the US National Science Foundation funded the Ecoplexity Project (www.ecoplexity.org) to promote the transfer of ecosystems ecology science to high school science teachers. In 2007, five high school science teachers from Puerto Rico developed an intensive field and laboratory campaign to understand how the terrestrial arthropod community differed among several disturbed sites in Northern Puerto Rico. Air temperature and rainfall were monitored at three forested and three pasture sites. Also, in each site, pitfall traps were left for a week to collect terrestrial arthropods. Collected individuals were counted, identified to the lowest taxonomic category possible, and assigned to morphospecies.
Results/Conclusions
Forest cover largely explained differences in below-canopy rainfall, air temperature, and soil arthropod abundance and richness. A qualitative model of forest ecosystem structure allowed teachers to understand these relationships and to frame research questions to be developed in their schools.
