IGN 2-2
Climate change, ecosystem services, and biogeochemical cycles

Monday, August 11, 2014
313, Sacramento Convention Center
Nancy B. Grimm, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
James N. Galloway, University of Virginia
William H. Schlesinger, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY
Christopher M. Clark, National Center for Environmental Assessment, US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC
Robert B. Jackson, School of Earth Sciences, Stanford and Duke universities, Stanford, CA
Beverly E. Law, Forest Ecosystems & Society, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR
Peter E. Thornton, Environmental Sciences Division & Climate Change Science Institute, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN
Alan R. Townsend, INSTAAR and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO
Uptake and storage of CO2 from the atmosphere is a benefit that people derive from ecosystems (an ecosystem service). These ecosystem processes reduce the concentration of the greenhouse gas that most drives climate change. Unfortunately, annual net CO2 uptake by U.S. ecosystems is much less than the amount of CO2 released to the atmosphere from human activities. Biogeochemical cycles, of carbon and other elements, interact with climate change to either increase or decrease the rate and direction of change as well as the vulnerability of people and ecosystems. Natural and managed shifts in these interactions present opportunities for managing change.