Environmental Science, 10th Edition (Cunningham)

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Overview: Cedar Creek Natural History Area, p. 229

This field laboratory north of the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN, is the site of several famous ecological experiments concerning biodiversity and resilience to environmental changes, such as global warming. Since 1997, Peter Reich and his colleagues have been carrying out free air carbon enrichment (FACE) experiments (see Exploring Science box in this chapter).

The square grid directly below the marker is the biodiversity experiment carried out by ecologist David Tilman and his coworkers. Each of the small squares in this grid contains a randomly assigned set of 1, 2, 4, 8, or 16 native prairie species. At the end of the growing season samples of above-ground and below-ground biomass are collected from each plot, cleaned, dried, and weighed to study the effect of species biodiversity on biomass production under relatively natural field conditions. The conclusion of this experiment is that mixtures of native plants produce significantly more biomass than do monocrops of domestic plants under the same conditions.

To the East you can see five faint circles surrounded by a service road. These circles are the carbon enrichment studies. The thin poles from which CO2 is emitted (see photo in boxed reading in text) are difficult to see at this resolution level. Sets of different species are also tested to determine their growth under elevated CO2 levels. Similar to Tilman's work, Reich finds that mixtures of species produce more biomass than do single species. While most plants grow better under elevated CO2 levels, the nutritional quality of their biomass often declines. Furthermore, for all species except legumes, nitrogen quickly becomes limiting under this faster growth.

1			What kind of land cover do you see in the region surrounding this facility?
			A)	Desert chaparral and fields for grazing cattle
			B)	Thick, unbroken forest
			C)	Farm fields with some small patches of woodland
			D)	Combination of sandy soils and bare rock
			E)	A mixture of woods (mostly hardwoods with some conifers) and cleared land / farm fields
2			How much is seed weight enhanced in this experiment? (See discussion in text.)
			A)	Enhancement was unsuccessful.
			B)	25% enhancement
			C)	50% enhancement
			D)	75% enhancement
			E)	100% enhancement