2010 CREST Annual Report - Alabama A&M University

Final Report: 0420541Previous studies of animal community responses to these types of disturbances are rather limited because of the difficulty of conducting a largereplicated field experiment with pretreatment data and controls. Thus, our findings for particular animal taxonomic groups will make significantcontributions to those disciplines because of the comprehensive experimental design we have chosen. We are even finding that some of thecreatures we are studying were thought to be rare in the State are fairly common once we began to conduct our intensive surveys and studies.We are confident that, in the long term, we will be able to contribute information on recovery period, threshold dynamics, and causalmechanisms to the disturbance ecology literature that is rare or lacking for some animal groups that are important components of the forestecosystem.Our search for mechanisms in observed responses has been mostly successful thus far, but not completely satisfactory. Some animalcommunity groups have less certainty about causal factors in explaining the ecological effects of the disturbances. Also, long term effects ofdisturbance may negate initial positive responses as environmental conditions change and weaken our perceived causal relationships. Ourincomplete understanding is not surprising given the complex nature of ecological relationships and our relatively short investigation of thisdisturbance regime.Beyond this view of our contribution to other disciplines, our Center has made some concrete contributions by expanding the scope of ourresearch to additional faunal components of the ecosystem to include the disciplines of herpetology and aquatic ecology. We anticipate thatthese will further add to our own internal synergy between taxonomic groups as we seek to determine the patterns of faunal response to forestecosystem disturbances and the underlying mechanisms that are responsible for those patterns. As our Center develops further, it is likely thatadditional animal communities may be represented that will fill in missing links and further our understanding of the deeper ecological patternsand processes regarding the dynamics of competition, predation, regeneration, migration, and other ecological areas of scientific exploration.THRUST AREA III: SOILSForest ecosystems play critical roles in the global C management, which is thought to affect green house gases and global warming. Since thecapacity of forest ecosystems to sequester C depends to a large extent on the ecosystem management practices, this research addresses one ofthe critical issues of our time ??'global soil C sequestration. Prescribed fire has been a forest management tool for hundreds of years for very good reasons: Native Americans used fire to create distinctlandscape patterns; forest managers have used low intensity burns to maintain fire dependant species, improve wildlife habitat, and prepare sitesfor seeding. But in spite of the wealth of knowledge that is currently available regarding forest management (specifically prescribed fires), andsoil C sequestration, there are still uncertainties due to current methods of assessing C sequestration in soils. This problem has led to differentconclusions in the literature. Many studies have suggested that frequent fires can deplete the organic litter layer and leave the mineral soilvulnerable to soil degradation and that forest harvesting on average has little or no effect on soil C and N. But other studies have not foundsignificant differences in C sequestration. Our research employs a pedological approach that analyzes research sites based on climate, organisms, topography, parent material, and time(clorpt). The approach also studies entire soil profiles by examining soil pits to determine the smallest C changes in the soil layers. Thereforethis study is contributing significantly to our current knowledge of ecosystem management and global C accumulation studies.Several research presentations in national and international meetings and conferences have been and will continually be done. A MS levelthesis titled: 'CARBON SEQUESTRATION IN A DISTURBED FOREST ECOSYSTEM OF NORTHERN ALABAMA'?has been completed,based entirely on the data generated from this study. One manuscript titled 'INITIAL RESPONSE OF SOIL NUTRIENT POOLS TOPRESCRIBED BURNING AND THINNING IN A MANAGED FOREST ECOSYSTEM OF NORTHERN ALABAMA' has been publishedin the highly rated Soil Science Society of America Journal (Soil Sci. Am. J. 73: 285-292). Another is being prepared for the highly rated SoilScience Journal. Part of a PhD dissertation titled 'SOIL BIOGEOCHEMISTRY OF TRACE METALS IN ALTERED ECOSYSTEMS' wascompleted based on data from Objective #7 of the Biogeochemical Group. That PhD work evaluated the impacts of prescribed forest fires andlogging on trace metal release and redistribution in the ecosystem. In all, this research is making great contributions in the discipline of soil andenvironmental sciences.THRUST AREA IV: MOLECULAR BIOLOGYThe findings from this research help us in identifying genetic bottlenecks, while developing diagnostic genetic markers for detection ofindividual species. As the inter-specific hybridization within red oaks is very common, we may be able to set up large-scale population geneticsexperiments to determine the significant locations in the oak genome that influence the important traits. Our current collaborations are alreadyworking to develop additional markers using next generation sequencing and bioinformatics for developing detailed genetic maps of red oakgenomes. THRUST AREA V: HUMAN DIMENSIONSThis research addressed one of the emerging themes in the global research-human dimensions of natural resources management by utilizing thePage 54 of 58