Author: Harry Shepherd

Preparations are underway for field season 2024, promising to be the biggest one yet in the project!

Both Harry and Josh will be spending 3 months over the summer at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve conducting plant surveys, plant trait measurements along with a whole host of other sampling to undertake.

Josh will be largely be focusing on his mechanistic enemy release or “MechER” experiment, which is in its final year. The experiment examines the role of plant pathogens in regulating plant populations and whether release from these pathogens can explain the success of non-native species. The first year of results from this experiment were excitingly published in Journal of Ecology last month.

Harry will be largely focusing on a monoculture experiment set-up two years ago on the grounds of the big biodiversity experiment. In this experiment, we have planted a range of commonly found species at the field site in single-species plots that we will now use to measure a whole host of different aboveground and belowground traits. This data will be essential as we look to further develop models that can predict the impact of non-native species on native biodiversity.

Alongside these experiments, we also have our sights set on some additional data ‘goodies’, including measures of soil functioning and fungal communities across the different experiments. There will also be a resurvey of E275, an experiment set up by Jane in 2012 to explore the drivers of plant colonisation, the first results of which were published last year.

All in all it promises to be a busy but exciting summer of fieldwork!

Earlier this month, an article I wrote was published in the Conversation discussing the implications of a recently published meta-analysis highlighting the risk extreme weather events pose to native biodiversity.

Extreme weather events are predicted to increase in regularity in the coming century under human-driven climatic change, posing increasing challenges for the protection of native biodiversity. Interactions between extreme weather events and invasive species have been observed in a number of recent studies (such as in this study), and could exacerbate impacts of non-native introductions on native biodiversity.

The study, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, examined the responses of native and non-native animals to a range of extreme weather events (such as storms, wildfires, droughts) across the globe. They found that non-native species are in general more resistant to extreme weather events, and may therefore be better placed to capitalize and out compete native biodiversity following such events.

Studies such as this highlight how interactions between non-native species and other global change drivers may combine to threaten native biodiversity in the Anthropocene, and how we may not yet be able to see the full scale of these interactions and the threats they pose. Developing predictive models, such as in WP5 of AlienImpacts, that allow forecasting of species responses under new environmental conditions and to changing climatic conditions is therefore crucial to identify areas of native biodiversity most at risk and implement preventative and restorative measures that can protect native diversity in the future.

The Conversation article can be found here.

A jam-packed first half of 2023 with a host of visitors and exciting science keeping us busy!

Things kicked off with Marc Cadotte visiting the lab for a month back in March. During his time with us, Marc gave a departmental seminar at KCL, along with an interactive session exploring the use of green space in cities to the Political Ecology, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (PEBES) group.

Adam Clark was also able to join for a few days in April to share his research to the group and work on an ongoing meta-community modelling collaboration with Jane and Laura Graham, who could only join virtually as heavy snowfall brought midland trains to a standstill!

We were then joined by Elizabeth Borer, Eric Seabloom, and Sophia Turner along with Marc for a 2-day workshop aimed at disentangling invasive species as drivers or passengers of environmental change and biodiversity loss. The workshop was crammed full of brainstorming and discussions, but we still found time for a few dog walks and some evening meals together.

In mid-June we set off for our annual AlienImpacts lab retreat, this time in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex. The retreat offered a welcome break from the London heat, and a chance to reflect on the work completed over the last year and focus on areas at which we could better collaborate to achieve our scientific goals for the project.   

Finally, in late June David Tilman joined us as chair of the AlienImpacts scientific advisory committee and a key collaborator in the project. Despite Dave battling jet lag, we discussed the many ongoing components of AlienImpacts and got valuable feedback on the project thus far.

All-in-all an exciting first 6 months for the team!