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Kathleen Schaeffer Prior to the 19th century, much of the Chihuahuan Desert was made up of perennial desert grasslands, however these grasslands have been greatly reduced by shrub encroachment, which has ultimately led to the shrub dominated landscapes we see today. In the early 2000s, local land managers began implementing large scale shrub removal that […]

Ifeanyi H. Nwigboji1, Marguerite Mauritz-Tozer1, Sergio A. Vargas-Zesati1, Craig E. Tweedie1 1System Ecology Lab, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso Texas To understand ecosystem change over a range of spatial and temporal scales and levels of biological organization and interaction, multiple streams of ecological data need to be collected, integrated, and analyzed. However,

Julie Bethany Rakes Predatory bacteria constitute a guild of heterotrophs specialized in obtaining resources for growth from the live bacteria they prey upon. Its members have been isolated from many environments and are phylogenetically diverse, each having evolved their mode of life independently. We report on a novel type of obligatory predatory bacterium, Candidatus Cyanoraptor

Molly Reichenborn Aided by a host of factors including extensive livestock grazing and drought, woody species such as Honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa Torr.) have progressively encroached into historically grass-dominated ecosystems in the southwestern United States. This transition from grassland to shrubland causes concomitant reduction in native grass and forb species, increased soil erosion and redistribution

Kieran Andreoni Grassland-to-shrubland state transitions can impose inconsistent but often significant effects on ecosystem services and biodiversity of drylands.  Mammalian herbivores can play an important role in determining such states because they connect higher a (i.e., predator) and lower (i.e., plant) trophic communities.  Cattle, rodents, and lagomorphs have been shown to often contribute to such