Research Projects
Anthropogenic climate change will likely result in shifts in tree species ranges and abundances. The species composition of the southern boreal biome (much of northern USA and southern Canada) is expected to be especially sensitive to climate warming since there is a relatively sharp boundary between many temperate species to the south and boreal species to the north. The potential of climate warming to alter tree species composition at the southern boreal-temperate forest ecotone is being assessed in experimentally warmed plots at two forested sites in northern Minnesota.
Funded by:
Department of Energy
Legislative-Citizen Committee on Minnesota Resources
University of Minnesota
Related work:
Reich, P.B., J. Oleksyn. 2008. Climate warming will reduce growth and survival of Scots pine except in the far north. (.pdf) Ecology Letters 11(6):588-597.
BioCON (Biodiversity, CO2, and Nitrogen) is an ongoing global-change field experiment which started in 1997 at the Cedar Creek Ecocsystem Science Reserve, in which atmospheric CO2, soil N supply, and plant species richness and composition have been simultaneously manipulated in a temperate perennial grassland. The study explores ways in which plant communities will respond to three environmental changes already occurring on a global scale: increasing nitrogen deposition, increasing atmospheric CO2, and decreasing biodiversity. Research focuses on the effects and interactions of atmospheric CO2 and soil nitrogen supply on the dynamics of plant communities and the pools and fluxes ofplant and soil carbon and nitrogen. FACE technology is used to deliver CO2 to six rings of plots.
Funded by:
National Science Foundation (Long-Term Ecological Research and Long Term Research in Environmental Biology)
For recent results, see:
Lau, J.A., J. Strengbom, L.R. Stone, P.B. Reich, P. Tiffin. 2008. Direct and indirect effects of CO2, nitrogen, and community diversity on plant–enemy interactions. (.pdf) Ecology 89:226–236.
 Understanding interactions among cycles of CO2, water and other key plant resources is critical to effectively predict future patterns of water, C, and N cycling under global environmental change. By adding water treatments to an ongoing BioCON experiment, we are testing several hypotheses about water-CO2-N interactions.
funded by:
National Institute for Climate Change Research
 Natural disturbances such as forest fire, wind throw, and insect and disease outbreaks can be important drivers of ecosystem dynamics. Human impacts, such as the changes in climate with industrialization, logging, accidental and intentional introduction of plants, and land use changes, also greatly affect ecosystem dynamics.
Funded by:
Wilderness Research Foundation
Recent results:
Rich, R.L., L.E. Frelich, P.B. Reich. 2007. Wind-throw mortality in the southern boreal forest: effects of species, diameter and stand age. (.pdf) J Ecology 95:1261-1273.
Scaling of respiratory metabolism to body size in animals is thought to be a fundamental law of nature, and considerable evidence has been reported for an approximate (3/4)-power relation. Some studies suggest that plant respiratory metabolism scales likewise, and that similar rules govern both higher plant and animal scaling. Although numerous theories have tried to explain universal scaling laws, they are all extremely controversial.
Recent results:
Makarieva, A.M., V.G. Gorshkov, B.-L. Li, S. L. Chown, P.B. Reich, V.M. Gavrilove. 2008. Mean mass-specific metabolic rates are strikingly similar across life’s major domains: Evidence for life’s metabolic optimum. (.pdf) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105:16994–16999.
 A research site near the village of Siemianice, in south-western Poland, is home to a unique, replicated common-garden experiment of 36-year old monoculture stands of 14 temperate tree species. It serves as a model system which we use to increase our mechanistic understanding of variation among tree species in Ca nutrition and the physiological, biogeochemical, and pedological consequences.
Recent results:
Knight, K., J. Oleksyn, A.M. Jagodzinski, P.B. Reich, M. Kasprowicz. 2008. Overstorey tree species regulate colonization by native and exotic plants: a source of positive relationships between understorey diversity and invasibility. (.pdf) Diversity and Distributions 14:666-675.
Our long-term studies at Cedar Creek were begun in 1982 with the funding of our LTER proposal by the National Science Foundation. Prescribed burning is a commonly accepted tool for managing and/or restoring temperate oak savannas and tall-grass prairie. Studies in oak and pine savannas suggest that high frequency prescribed burns are effective in suppressing understory shrubs and trees and in promoting increases in grasses and forbs. In the 1960s, Cedar Creek scientists started one of the earliest and longest-running experiments on fire and fire suppression in forest ecosystems.
Funded by:
Long Term Ecological Research
Recent publication:
Peterson, D., P.B. Reich. 2008. Fire frequency and tree canopy structure influence plant species diversity in a forest-grassland ecotone. (.pdf) Plant Ecology 194:5-16.
This includes work on controls on range limits of hardwoods and conifers; on regeneration patterns in mixed hardwood-conifer stands as a function of neighborhood effects plus climate change; and on effects of multiple disturbance events (wind, fire, or both, at varying severities).
Funded by:
Wilderness Research Foundation
Rich, R.L., L.E. Frelich, P.B. Reich. 2007. Wind-throw mortality in the southern boreal forest: effects of species, diameter and stand age. (.pdf) J Ecology 95:1261-1273.
Biological invasions present the single greatest threat to North American eastern deciduous forests and the second leading threat to biodiversity across all ecosystems in the United States. The aim of our research is to understand the factors that control invasion patterns, the relative importance of these factors and the direction of relationships between factors controlling invasions. The main focus of our research on invasives, thus far, has been earthworms and buckthorn.
The Minnesota 2050 project is an integrated research project designed to contemplate the environmental future of Minnesota. This project is using both quantitative analysis and modeling of major trends impacting the environment, as well as qualitative envisioning of possible future environmental scenarios.
If we understand how multiple global drivers collectively influence plant nitrogen and phosphorous, we will have a framework with which to better predict responses of terrestrial ecosystems to elevated atmospheric CO2, N deposition, pest outbreaks or alternative land management practices.
Recent publication:
Reich, P.B., J. Oleksyn, I.J. Wright. 2009. Leaf phosphorus influences the photosynthesis-nitrogen relation: a cross-biome analysis of 314 species. (.pdf) Oecologia DOI: 10.1007/s00442-009-1291-3
GLOPNET
Or Global Plant Trait Network: A collection of plant trait data including specific leaf area, leaf lifespan, leaf thickness and tissue density, leaf size, gas exchange traits such as photosynthetic capacity, dark respiration, stomatal conductance, and CO2 drawdown, and N, P, K concentrations.
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