Biology
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Item Long-term monitoring of Mount St. Helens micrometeorology(Wiley, 2022-12-09) Che-Castaldo, Christian; Crisafulli, Charlie M.The 1980 volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens had profound impacts on the geology, hydrology, and ecology of its surrounding landscapes. Consequently, the event provided a unique opportunity to study ecological change over time in relation to abiotic factors. To better assess the role localized environmental conditions play in these larger processes, we have monitored micrometeorological conditions across six disturbance zones on Mount St. Helens created by the eruption. We deployed 823 environmental sensors at 191 sites from 1997 to 2022 to measure the temperature and relative humidity of aquatic (temperature only) and terrestrial habitats in these areas, collecting over 4.2 million measurements in total. Measurements were typically recorded every 30 min from late spring through mid-fall, with the exception being Spirit Lake, where temperatures have been measured hourly on a year-round basis since 2002. These data have been used to address two broad research questions: (1) how small-scale environmental conditions influence patterns of survivorship and/or establishment on Mount St. Helens post-eruption for a range of organisms, including plants, small mammals, birds, amphibians, arthropods, fish, and other aquatic biota, and (2) to quantify and compare these environmental conditions across different disturbance zones, which vary in disturbance type, intensity, and history of post-eruption secondary disturbances. Due to the repeatability of these measurements over many years, these data lend themselves to exploring the relationship between forest succession and microclimate, especially with respect to forest-dwelling organisms whose spread and demography are sensitive to temperature and relative humidity. In addition, this dataset could be used to investigate additional questions related to early succession, disturbance ecology, climate change, or volcano ecology. This dataset is available in the R data package MSHMicroMetR, which also includes an R Shiny data visualization and exploration tool. There is no copyright on the data; please cite this data paper Ecology when using these data.Item THE ATTACK DYNAMICS AND ECOSYSTEM CONSEQUENCES OF STEM BORER HERBIVORY ON SITKA WILLOW AT MOUNT ST. HELENS(2014) Che-Castaldo, Christian; Fagan, William F; Behavior, Ecology, Evolution and Systematics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Variation in plant quality across space and time is considered a driving force behind the heterogeneous distribution of herbivorous insects on their host plants. At the same time, herbivory itself can mediate ecosystem processes that can cause feedbacks directly affecting plant quality. Here I examine both of these processes in a primary successional system to ask how insect herbivory can shape successional outcomes. I performed a three year observational study to determine which host plant factors - stress, vigor, and sex - were associated with insect herbivory by the poplar willow weevil (Cryptorynchus lapathi) on Sitka willow (Salix sitchensis), a dioecious pioneer shrub recolonizing Mount St. Helens after the 1980 eruption. I found that weevils prefer or perform best on vigorously growing willows that are seasonally water stressed. This result highlights the need to integrate hypotheses regarding insect response to stress and vigor into a single phenologically based framework focusing on nutrient mobilization to early insect herbivore life stages. I performed a field experiment involving leaf litter from stems attacked and not by weevils to determine whether weevils mediate nutrient cycling by altering willow leaf litter quality or resources available in its root environment. I found that although weevils do not consume leaves directly, stem herbivory is associated with a large reduction in leaf phosphorus, which in turn decelerates phosphorus cycling on Mount St. Helens. Lastly, I performed observational and experimental studies to show that the large female bias seen in willow on Mount St. Helens is not caused by weevil herbivory or other late acting ecological factors, but likely result from biased seed sex ratios. Taken together, these results suggest that weevil herbivory is retarding willow colonization in upland areas on Mount St. Helens, possibly allowing for alternative successional trajectories.