HR: 16:55h
AN: H44C-04 INVITED    [Abstracts]
TI: Transient coupling of water, carbon and nutrient cycling patterns over hillslope gradients: Co- evolution of catenae in different landscapes
AU: * Band, L E
EM: lband@email.unc.edu
AF: University of North Carolina, CB#3220, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States
AU: Hwang, T
EM: h7666@email.unc.edu
AF: University of North Carolina, CB#3220, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States
AU: Hales, T C
EM: tchales@email.unc.edu
AF: University of North Carolina, CB#3220, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States
AU: Groffman, P
EM: groffmanp@ecostudies.org
AF: Institute for Ecosystem Studies, Box AB 65 Sharon Turnpike, Millbrook, NY 12545, United States
AU: Pouyat, R
EM: rpouyat@fs.fed.us
AF: USDA Forest Service, Baltimore Ecosystem Studies 5200 Westland Blvd., Baltimore, MD 21227, United States
AB: Interest and activity in the mechanistic linkage of hydrologic and ecological processes has seen a dramatic increase over the past two decades. The majority of research has addressed water stress as a major determinant of ecological patch characteristics, including canopy density, root profiles and life form, with an emphasis on water limited environments. Optimization methods, following Eagleson's&ppioneering work, have been developed to pose simple principles such as productivity maximization or water stress minimization to estimate ecological patch structure within the context of climate and soil conditions. However, ecosystems are characterized by recurring or continual disturbance which reset or have significant restructuring effects on ecological form, and can produce long periods of transient adjustment of the full ecosystem that are "sub-optimal" relative to the simple criteria posed. In addition, the connectivity of patches along hydrologic flowpaths creates a space/time sequence of ecosystem states and complex hillslope to catchment level behavior showing elements of self organization which are transient and conditional on both current ecohydrological processes and the history of disturbance. Soil and canopy memory to a range of disturbance time scales and interannual climate variability may be demonstrated by both empirical measurements and modeled catchment ecohydrologic behavior. We explore examples of this behavior in humid landscapes with a gradient of natural to anthropomorphic disturbance in two LTER sites: Coweeta which has a long term data set characterizing control and manipulated catchments, and the Baltimore Ecosystem Study with instrumented catchments in a range of land use and management.
DE: 1813 Eco-hydrology
DE: 1847 Modeling
DE: 1851 Plant ecology (0476)
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting