Kellogg Biological Station Long Term Ecological Research

The sustainability of ecosystem services depends on a firm understanding of both how organisms provide these services to humans and how these organisms will be altered with a changing climate. Unquestionably a dominant feature of most ecosystems, invertebrates affect many ecosystem services and are also highly responsive to climate change. However, there is still a basic lack of understanding of the direct and indirect paths by which invertebrates influence ecosystem services, as well as how climate change will affect those ecosystem services by altering invertebrate populations. This indicates a lack of communication and collaboration among scientists researching ecosystem services and climate change effects on invertebrates, and land managers and researchers from other disciplines, which becomes obvious when systematically reviewing the literature relevant to invertebrates, ecosystem services, and climate change. To address this issue, we review how invertebrates respond to climate change. We then review how invertebrates both positively and negatively influence ecosystem services. Lastly, we provide some critical future directions for research needs, and suggest ways in which managers, scientists and other researchers may collaborate to tackle the complex issue of sustaining invertebrate-mediated services under a changing climate.

Abstract We investigated long‐term and seasonal patterns of N imports and exports, as well as patterns following climate perturbations, across biomes using data from 15 watersheds from nine Long‐Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites in North America. Mean dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) import–export budgets (N import via precipitation–N export via stream flow) for common years across all watersheds was highly variable, ranging from a net loss of − 0·17 ± 0·09 kg N ha −1 mo −1 to net retention of 0·68 ± 0·08 kg N ha −1 mo −1 . The net retention of DIN decreased (smaller import–export budget) with increasing precipitation, as well as with increasing variation in precipitation during the winter, spring, and fall. Averaged across all seasons, net DIN retention decreased as the coefficient of variation (CV) in precipitation increased across all sites ( r 2 = 0·48, p = 0·005). This trend was made stronger when the disturbed watersheds were withheld from the analysis ( r 2 = 0·80, p < 0·001, n = 11). Thus, DIN exports were either similar to or exceeded imports in the tropical, boreal, and wet coniferous watersheds, whereas imports exceeded exports in temperate deciduous watersheds. In general, forest harvesting, hurricanes, or floods corresponded with periods of increased DIN exports relative to imports. Periods when water throughput within a watershed was likely to be lower (i.e. low snow pack or El Niño years) corresponded with decreased DIN exports relative to imports. These data provide a basis for ranking diverse sites in terms of their ability to retain DIN in the context of changing precipitation regimes likely to occur in the future. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The tools that scientists and engineers analyze data are changing—and at the same time, science education standards have shifted to focus on science practices that articulate multiple ways for teachers to support students to make sense of data in science classrooms. Moreover, the types of data and technologies available to teachers and students to support their work with data have advanced. While these changes and features point to the importance of data, practices that relate to data, and the roles of technology, little research has offered a portrait of what teachers presently use. We report on findings from a survey conducted in the United States of 330 science teachers on the data sources, practices, and technologies common to their classroom. We found that teachers predominantly involve their students in analyzing relatively small data sets that they collect. In support of this work, teachers tend to use the technologies that are available to them—namely, calculators and spreadsheets. We discuss what these findings suggest for practice, research, and policy, with an emphasis on supporting teachers based on their needs.