Date of Submission

Fall 2015

Academic Programs and Concentrations

Biology

Project Advisor 1

Felicia Keesing

Project Advisor 2

Sasha Wright

Abstract/Artist's Statement

­Climate change can negatively affect ecosystem functioning and services that natural ecosystems provide. Higher biodiversity may help to buffer against such changes by providing a higher resistance to environmental perturbation. The global loss of biodiversity is compounding the effects of climate change, creating ecosystems that provide fewer services and are less resistant to environmental change. This senior project tested how biodiversity affected biomass production of two prairie grasses (Panicum virgatum & Dactylis glomerata). Additionally, the effect of symbiotic fungal mycorrhizae diversity and its capacity to relax drought stress in these grasses was examined. I found that increases in community diversity did not necessarily increase plot biomass and that the identity of individual species was the main driver of biomass production. Understanding this relationship is of critical importance, as loss of biodiversity in one organismal guild can have cascading effects, resulting in less stable and less productive environments.

Open Access Agreement

On-Campus only

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Download

This work is protected by a Creative Commons license. Any use not permitted under that license is prohibited.

Bard Off-campus Download

Bard College faculty, staff, and students can login from off-campus by clicking on the Off-campus Download button and entering their Bard username and password.

Share

COinS