UCM sites. Snow depth, soil moisture and soil temperature are measured near the Merced Grove, Gin Flat, Smoky Jack Creek, and Olmsted Quarry with a distributed array of 6-7 sensor nodes at each location. Snow depth is measured in the open, at the drip edge and under canopies, as well as 3-4 other sites representative of an area of 1-2 hectares. Soil moisture and temperature are measured at 10, 30, 60 and 90 cm depths...

Determining whether many functionally complementary species or only a subset of key species are necessary to maintain ecosystem functioning and services is a critical question in community ecology and biodiversity conservation. Identifying such key species remains challenging, especially in the tropics where many species co-occur and can potentially support the same or different processes. Here, we developed a new community-wide scan (CWS) approach, analogous to the genome-wide scan, to identify fish species that significantly contribute,...

Theory suggests that the direct transmission of endosymbionts from parents to offspring (vertical transmission) in animal hosts is advantageous and evolutionarily stable, yet many host species instead acquire their symbionts from the environment (horizontal acquisition). An outstanding question in marine biology is why some scleractinian corals do not provision their eggs and larvae with the endosymbiotic dinoflagellates that are necessary for a juvenile’s ultimate survival. We tested whether the acquisition of photosynthetic endosymbionts (family Symbiodiniaceae)...

Corals and humans represent two extremely disparate metazoan lineages and are therefore useful for comparative evolutionary studies. Two lipid-based molecules that are central to human immunity, platelet activating factor (PAF) and Lyso-PAF were recently identified in scleractinian corals. To identify processes in corals that involve these molecules, PAF and Lyso-PAF biosynthesis was quantified in conditions known to stimulate PAF production in mammals (tissue growth and exposure to elevated levels of ultraviolet light) and in conditions...

There is a long history of examining the impacts of nutrient pollution and pH on coral reefs. However, little is known about how these two stressors interact and influence coral reef ecosystem functioning. Using a six-week nutrient addition experiment, we measured the impact of elevated nitrate (NO3) and phosphate (PO43) on net community calcification (NCC) and net community production (NCP) rates of individual taxa and combined reef communities. Our study had four major outcomes: 1)...