Ecosystems in today's world are responding to a wide variety of environmental changes. What happens when these changes interact?
That was the topic of a paper published by David Ward, Ph.D., the Art and Margaret Herrick endowed professor of Plant Biology in 91²Ö¿â’s Department of Biological Sciences, and international colleagues and graduate students in the journal Scientific Reports.
In their new paper, Ward and colleagues asked whether this encroachment of woody shrubs into grasslands in South Africa would increase or decrease the amount of carbon stored in the soil under the plants. Answering this question will help us understand whether or not grasslands of the future will become carbon dioxide sources, contributing to the increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and global greenhouse effect.
Read more in the 2019 issue of the 91²Ö¿â Research Review Magazine