Environmental Science & Regional Planning Program
Richard Gill
Understanding the Consequences of Ecosystem Change
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Understanding how ecosystems respond and recover from disturbance is a fundamental question facing environmental scientists, with bearing on natural resource management, environmental policy, and basic ecological theory. Dr. Gill and his colleagues examine the consequence of disturbance, ranging from the pyroclastic flows of Mount St. Helens to subalpine meadows in the Rocky Mountains. They explore how ecosystems function and respond to disturbance, and how to scale process-based ecosystem measurements to landscapes, regions, and continents.
The diversity of this research reflects the scope of problems associated with disturbance, and the strength of collaborative research potential at Washington State University. Three ongoing projects use information from both natural and anthropogenic disturbance to understand ecosystem properties and functions. One project, in collaboration with USDA and Duke University, is conducted to determine the response of grasslands to past and future atmospheric CO2. This research is designed to experimentally evaluate the consequences of rising CO2 on nutrient cycles and soil carbon storage, and to determine water availability with climate change.
To understand the interactions between climate-change and land use, a second project relies on a suite of paleo- and experimental studies devoted to understanding the complex links between climate variability and carbon dynamics in subalpine ecosystems in the High Plateau region of the Rocky Mountains. This research focuses specifically on the interactions of climate anomalies and grazing on the movement of upper treeline into subalpine meadows.
Finally, to understand community and ecosystem recovery on the pumice plains of Mount St. Helens, research is conducted to explore feedbacks between plants, herbivores, and soil nutrient cycling. These projects are designed to provide insight into the basic principals of ecology, as well as to increase our understanding of the important responses that structure ecosystems in a rapidly changing world.
Contact
Information
Richard Gill, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Environmental Science & Regional Planning Program
Washington State University
P.O. Box 642812
Pullman, WA 99164-2812
Telephone: 509-335-6422
E-mail: rgill@wsu.edu |
