Ecology

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/44

The department's teaching and research addresses critical ecological and natural resources issues for Montana, but also tackles fundamental and applied questions around the globe. Undergraduate programs within the department include Fish & Wildlife Management and Ecology, Conservation Biology and Ecology, Organismal Biology, and Biology Teaching. Graduate programs (M.S. and P.hD.) include Fish & Wildlife Management or Biology and Biological Sciences and an intercollege PhD in Ecology and Environmental Sciences.

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Functional traits underlie specialist-generalist strategies in whitebark pine and limber pine
(Elsevier BV, 2023-08) Ulrich, Danielle E. M.; Wasteneys, Chloe; Hoy-Skubik, Sean; Alongi, Franklin
Plant species life history strategies are described by functional variation spanning an acquisitive and conservative resource use continuum. Specialist species can exhibit traits promoting one end of the continuum, while generalist species can display traits promoting both acquisitive and conservative resource use. Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis, PIAL) and limber pine (Pinus flexilis, PIFL) are two high-elevation pines that have similar growth and morphology, yet contrasting elevational distributions with PIAL viewed as a specialist inhabiting a narrower elevation range, and PIFL as a generalist inhabiting a broader elevation range. We compared the physiological and morphological traits of greenhouse-grown 5-year-old PIAL and PIFL. Our results suggest that PIFL’s acquisitive and conservative resource use traits contribute to its generalist strategy and ability to inhabit a greater range of elevations than PIAL. PIFL had greater acquisitive resource use traits including: high-light tolerance (greater Qsat, greater fascicle density), increased biomass allocation to photosynthetic tissue (higher needle biomass, aboveground:belowground biomass, needle:branch + stem biomass), and higher C and water uptake (greater stomatal density and size, higher C assimilation rate), as well as greater conservative resource use traits including: greater physical stress resistance (shorter height, higher stem and branch diameters, greater branch and stem diameter:length), drought tolerance (higher SWC, leaf starch proportion), and drought avoidance (earlier budburst phenology, smaller hydroscape area) than PIAL. Our results suggest that PIFL may make more efficient use of high-light loads and maximize C and water uptake when moisture is abundant during spring snowmelt before the onset of dry summer conditions. Other conservative resource use traits describing cold tolerance, heat tolerance, and drought tolerance did not differ between species, suggesting that both species exhibit traits that promote similar conservative resource use enabling their overlapping persistence at higher elevations. Comparing the physiology of PIAL and PIFL within the same environment enables us to identify physiological mechanisms that underlie species establishment and survival, and how juvenile physiology contributes to their contrasting distributions and their generalist-specialist strategies.
Root exudate composition reflects drought severity gradient in blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis)
(Springer Nature, 2022-07) Ulrich, Danielle E. M.; Clendinen, Chaevien S.; Alongi, Franklin; Mueller, Rebecca C.; Chu, Rosalie K.; Toyoda, Jason; Gallegos‑Graves, La Verne; Goemann, Hannah M.; Peyton, Brent; Sevanto, Sanna; Dunbar, John
Plant survival during environmental stress greatly affects ecosystem carbon (C) cycling, and plant–microbe interactions are central to plant stress survival. The release of C-rich root exudates is a key mechanism plants use to manage their microbiome, attracting beneficial microbes and/or suppressing harmful microbes to help plants withstand environmental stress. However, a critical knowledge gap is how plants alter root exudate concentration and composition under varying stress levels. In a greenhouse study, we imposed three drought treatments (control, mild, severe) on blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis Kunth Lag. Ex Griffiths), and measured plant physiology and root exudate concentration and composition using GC–MS, NMR, and FTICR. With increasing drought severity, root exudate total C and organic C increased concurrently with declining predawn leaf water potential and photosynthesis. Root exudate composition mirrored the physiological gradient of drought severity treatments. Specific compounds that are known to alter plant drought responses and the rhizosphere microbiome mirrored the drought severity-induced root exudate compositional gradient. Despite reducing C uptake, these plants actively invested C to root exudates with increasing drought severity. Patterns of plant physiology and root exudate concentration and composition co-varied along a gradient of drought severity.