First meeting: tba

PIs:
Amanda Subalusky
Elizabeth le Roux

iDiv member:
Stan Harpole

Project summary:
A growing body of research has shown that animals play important roles in ecosystems through their effects on biogeochemical cycles, and changes in animal diversity may substantially alter nutrient dynamics across realms. However, to date there is no integrative theoretical framework that helps understand the consequences of animal diversity (taxonomic, functional, phylogenetic) on nutrient dynamics. Furthermore, despite a plethora of data on recycling variables such as animal excretion rates, body size, body stoichiometry, and waste stoichiometry, quantitative synthesis of the magnitude and relevance of these variables on zoogeochemical processes, across taxa and realms, is lacking. Our working group will address these gaps through three goals: (i) integrate metabolic theory and ecological stoichiometry to develop theoretical models that use morphological, phenological, physiological and behavioural traits of animals to predict the impacts of animals on nutrient cycling; (ii) compile and collate data from existing but dispersed databases on animal traits such as body stoichiometry and excretion/egestion stoichiometry across different animal taxa (vertebrates and invertebrates) and realms (aquatic and terrestrial) to synthesise zoogeochemical effects and parametrize the zoogeochemically-explicit mathematical models developed in (i); and (iii) develop a framework for scaling up organismal-level zoogeochemical effects to the population (abundance, demography), community (biodiversity), and ecosystem level (nutrient stocks and fluxes). Increased predictability of animal effects on nutrient cycling will enable greater integration of the role of animals into ecosystem models of carbon and nutrient cycling, and improve predictions of the consequences of future biodiversity loss on ecosystem biogeochemical cycles critical to Earth system sustainability.

In person participants:
tba

Remote partcipants:
tba

Meeting report:
tba