Environmental Science, 10th Edition (Cunningham)

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Overview: Cedar Creek Natural History Area, p. 340

Go to the place marker on GE for Cedar Creek Natural History Area. The square grid to the west of 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 monocultures 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. As in 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 around this facility?
			A)	Desert chaparral
			B)	Thick forest
			C)	Farm fields with some surrounding shrubbery
			D)	Combination of sandy soils and serpentine rock
			E)	A mixture of woods (mostly hardwoods with some conifers) and farm fields
2			What's the diameter of one of the FACE circles?
			A)	About 10 m
			B)	About 20 m
			C)	About 30 m
			D)	About 40 m
			E)	About 50 m
3			How much is seed weight enhanced in this experiment? (See discussion in text.)
			A)	Enhancement was unsuccessful.
			B)	Seed weight was enhanced 25%.
			C)	Seed weight was enhanced 50%.
			D)	Seed weight was enhanced 75%.
			E)	Seed weight was enhanced 100%.