Wednesday, August 4, 2010: 1:30 PM-5:00 PM
403-405, David L Lawrence Convention Center
SYMP 13 - The Gate-Keepers in a Changing World: Integrating Microbial Diversity with Global Change Biology
Microorganisms (Bacteria, Archaea and Fungi) are the gate-keepers of many ecosystem-scale biogeochemical cycles. Although there have been measurable changes in ecosystem function due to human activities such as greenhouse gas production, nutrient loading, land-use change, and water consumption, few studies have connected microbial community dynamics with these changes in ecosystem function. Specifically, very little is known about how global changes will induce important functional changes in microbial biodiversity. Even less is known about how microbial functional changes could alter rates of nutrient cycling or whether microbial communities have enough functional redundancy that changes will have little impact on overall process rates. The proposed symposium will provide an overview of this emerging research area, with emphasis on linking the microorganisms directly to important ecological functions under the influence of global change dynamics. The session will include both broad overviews as well as specific case-studies by researchers who examine microbial communities from a variety of taxonomic levels and from various environments. The session will begin broadly, with speakers discussing how microbial communities may inform ecosystem-scale global change studies, and help to make microbial ecological knowledge more tangible for a broad range of ecologists. The session will continue with case studies of microbial community information informing process in global change experiments. Finally, the session will close with speakers discussing how microbial community information might fit into global change models, and what types of information are useful for future studies. We have requested that speakers particularly incorporate their views on what types of microbial data is useful and informative in the context of larger ecosystem processes. We foresee that this session could serve as a focal point for global change microbial ecologists to meet and discuss their field at the ESA 2010 General Meeting. However, more importantly, the session will provide for a broad range of interests for ecosystem ecologists, theoretical ecologists, and global change biologists, and will foster communication between these groups to generate informative microbial community data in the future. The session will consist of eight 15-minute presentations with 5 minutes for questions between each oral presentation. The final 30 minutes of the session will consist of a panel discussion involving interactive discussion between the speakers and the audience. The results of this panel discussion, as well as highlights from the oral presentations will be proposed to “Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment” as a review article or special issue for publication.
Organizer:Kathryn M. Docherty, University of Oregon
Co-organizer:Jessica LM Gutknecht, Helmoltz- Centre for Environmental Research- UFZ
Moderator:Jessica LM Gutknecht, Helmoltz- Centre for Environmental Research- UFZ
Endorsement:ESA Soil Ecology Section, afinzi@bu.edu, ESA Microbial Ecology Section
1:30 PM Introductory remarks
1:35 PMSYMP 13-1Do they or don't they? A synthesis of microbial response to environmental change
Teri C. Balser, University of Wisconsin-Madison
1:55 PMSYMP 13-2Microbial responses to changes in land use
Rebecca C. Mueller, University of Oregon, Klaus Nüsslein, University of Massachusetts, Jorge Rodrigues, University of Texas, Arlington, James Tiedje, Michigan State University, Vivian Pellizari, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, Brigitte Feigl, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, Brendan Bohannan, University of Oregon
2:15 PMSYMP 13-3The role of fungi in mediating ecosystem responses to global change
Kathleen K. Treseder, University of California, Irvine
2:35 PMSYMP 13-4Examining methanogens in northern peatlands: Potential role of ecological and latitudinal trends
Hinsby Cadillo-Quiroz, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
2:55 PMSYMP 13-5Patterns in soil ammonia-oxidizer response to global change
Kathryn M. Docherty, University of Oregon, Brendan Bohannan, University of Oregon
3:15 PM Break
3:25 PMSYMP 13-6Responses of soil nitrite-oxidizers to global environmental changes
Audrey Niboyet, Université de Lyon, Eléonore Attard, Université de Lyon, Laure Barthes, Université Paris-Sud 11, Christopher B. Field, Carnegie Institution for Science, Nadine Guillaumaud, Université de Lyon, Bruce A. Hungate, Northern Arizona University, Paul W. Leadley, Université Paris-Sud 11, Catherine Lerondelle, Université de Lyon, Thomas Pommier, Université de Lyon, Maria Tourna, Université de Lyon, Akihiko Terada, Technical University of Denmark, Franck Poly, Université de Lyon, Xavier Le Roux, Université de Lyon
3:45 PMSYMP 13-7Microbial adaptations to envrionmental change: a moving target for global change ecology
Matthew D. Wallenstein, Colorado State University
4:05 PMSYMP 13-8Integrating microbial community data with ecological theory
Steven D. Allison, University of California, Irvine
4:25 PM Panel discussion
4:55 PM Concluding remarks

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See more of The 95th ESA Annual Meeting (August 1 -- 6, 2010)