SpaCE: SPATIAL & COMMUNITY ECOLOGY LAB
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Header image: Kara Dobson, winner 2022 LTER Photo Contest
back to SpaCE Lab Research Overview

Biotic Interactions & Climate

Project 1: warmXtrophic: Herbivory & Warming in Early Successional Fields

We are interested in understanding how biotic interactions and climate change directly and indirectly affect community structure and function. In particular, we are interested in how competition and herbivory interact with warming to affect early successional field community composition, phenology, and plant traits in Michigan. 
  • Lab members: Phoebe Zarnetske, Mark Hammond, Moriah Young, Kara Dobson, Kathryn Schmidt, Kileigh Welshofer, Nina Lany, Tori Niewohner, Elizabeth Postema, Amy Wrobleski
  • Funding: Michigan State University, University of Michigan Biological Station, Kellogg Biological Station REU Program
  • Publications:
    • Welshofer et al. 2018 Oecologia
    • ​Welshofer et al. 2018 Methods in Ecology & Evolution
  • ​GitHub: https://github.com/plzmsu/warmXtrophic
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Project 2: REX: Rainfall Exclusion eXperiment ( +warming  -insects )

In this project (shown in the header image above), we are investigating the impact of climate change , on early successional and agricultural field communities (plants, insects, soil), through precipitation and warming manipulations. As a Co-PI of the KBS LTER, Phoebe Zarnetske helps oversee the larger REX experiment. The SpaCE Lab has added warming treatments (through open top chambers; OTCs) and insect reduction treatments to the original REX design on the early successional plots, enabling researchers to understand both the singular and interactive effects of warming, precipitation, and the reduction of insect herbivores. Together, this experiment and the longer-term warmXtrophic experiment, focus on both the direct and indirect effects of climate change, and the potential for biotic interactions to mediate or exacerbate climate change effects on plant communities. As part of this larger NSF LTER award, this project will This long term research will determine if improving soil health and biodiversity in agricultural landscapes can help farmers deal with a more unpredictable future. 
  • Lab members: Phoebe Zarnetske (Co-PI, KBS LTER), Moriah Young, Kara Dobson, Mark Hammond, Emily Parker, Jordan Zapata, Lisa Leonard, Emerson Wesselhoff, Adrian Noecker
  • Collaborators: Nick Haddad (MSU), Sarah Evans (MSU), Jen Lau (IU), Jennifer Jones (MSU), Nameer Baker (MSU), Christine Sprunger (MSU), Phil Robertson (MSU), and many others on Team REX (T. rex).
  • Funding: NSF LTER: KBS Award # 2224712; Kellogg Biological Station REU Program
  • ​GitHub: https://github.com/kbs-lter​ 
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Project 3: Biotic Interactions & MetaNetworks

The project involves network modeling of avian biodiversity and avian biotic interactions through space and time (~1997-present), based on a compiled database of bird-bird interactions across North America, and the publicly available North American Breeding Bird Survey and eBird occurrence data. There are 2 parts of the research: (1) creating the bird-bird interaction database for all 700+ species in North America, and (2) modeling the species interaction networks resulting from these data, in both time and space, at regional to continental scales.

Given the recent evidence that birds are declining in populations and shifting their ranges in response to climate change, a leading hypothesis is that avian interaction networks are similarly shifting in response to climate change, but are inherently stable across environments in the absence of climate change. This research will help elucidate whether bird communities remain stable in their roles, despite species turnover.
  • Lab Members: Phoebe Zarnetske, Emily Parker, India Hirschowitz, Jordan Zapata
  • Collaborators: Vincent Miele (University of Lyon 1), Stephane Dray (University of Lyon 1), Pam Rasmussen (Cornell Lab of Ornithology)
  • Funding: Michigan State University
  • ​GitHub: https://github.com/SpaCE-Lab-MSU/avian-meta-network, https://github.com/SpaCE-Lab-MSU/Avian-Interaction-Database 
  • We dedicate this work to our colleague and collaborator, Marc Ohlmann (1992-2023) 
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Project 4: Multi-species distribution modeling

Species distribution models (SDMs) provide a means for forecasting species' distributions in space - both now and in the future during climate change. However, such correlative approaches commonly leave out biotic interactions and treat species individually. We incorporate biotic interactions among eastern hemlock, elongate hemlock scale, and hemlock woolly-adelgid, into multi-species (joint) distribution models with ordinal data. Biotic interaction strength can change depending on environmental context; we illustrate an approach to incorporating context dependency into SDMs with barnacles, mussels, and seastars in the Pacific Northwest rocky intertidal system.

A grant from the State of Michigan Invasive Species Grant Program focused on the recent invasion of hemlock woolly adelgid to Michigan, with the goals of (1) mapping current distributions of hemlock and hemlock woolly adelgid, and (2) forecasting the future spread of adelgid across the state based on cold tolerance and hemlock landscape connectivity.
  • Lab Members: Nina Lany, Phoebe Zarnetske
  • Collaborators: Deb McCullough (MSU), Jeff Andresen (MSU), Erin Schliep (U of Missouri), Robert Schaeffer and Colin Orians (Tufts U), David Orwig (Harvard U), Evan Pressier (U Rhode Island), Bruce Menge (Oregon State U), Tarik Gouhier (Northeastern U).
  • Funding: Michigan State University, Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, Michigan Invasive Species Grant Program
  • Publications:
    • Lany et al. 2019 Ecography
    • Lany et al. 2018 Ecology
    • Lany et al. 2017 Integrative & Comparative Biology
    • Schliep et al. 2017 Global Ecology & Biogeography
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Project 5: Climate and functional trait-mediated species interactions

Foraging traits could alter the strength of direct and indirect effects of climate warming. We are using microcosm experiments, in situ field experiments, and field surveys of ponds in southwestern Michigan to understand how rising temperatures will interact with predator foraging strategy to alter predator-prey interactions of freshwater invertebrates. We are using experimental results to parameterize mathematical population models forecasting how changing predator-prey interactions may alter invertebrate populations and the structure of freshwater food webs under different RCP climate change scenarios.​ With funding from NASA (NESSF), we scaled up these results to continental scales with the aquaXterra project. 
  • Lab Members: Laura Twardochleb, Phoebe Zarnetske, Ethan Hiltner, Tyler Treakle, Arpita Nayak, Faith Slubowski, Erik Ralston, Minali Bhatt
  • Collaborators: Chris Klausmeier (MSU), Kate Boersma (UCSD), Matt Pyne (Lamar University)
  • Funding:  Michigan State University ESPP, Kellogg Biological Station, Society for Freshwater Science
  • Publications:
    • Twardochleb et al. 2023 Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
    • Twardochleb et al. 2020 Ecology
  • GitHub: https://github.com/aquaXterra/freshwater_insects_CONUS
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Project 6: Biotic Multipliers of Climate Change

Biotic interactions We used multivariate autoregressive models to investigate how freshwater fish body condition has changed in response to climate and biotic interactions over 30 years in Arctic lakes. Species include: lake trout, Arctic grayling, round whitefish, slimy sculpin, and burbot.
  • Lab Members: Phoebe Zarnetske
  • Collaborators: Mark Urban (UCONN), David Skelly (Yale), Phaedra Budy and Stephen Klobucar (USGS, Utah State University).
  • Funding:  Yale Climate and Energy Institute, Arctic LTER
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