Fundamentals of Ecosystem Science

Instructors: Zoe Cardon and Ketil Koop-Jakobsen (MBL)

Course Description:

During the first four weeks of the program, all students engage in depth with the history and fundamentals of ecosystem science. Using local terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems on Cape Cod as model systems, students will compare and contrast ecosystem functions through intensive fieldwork and associated laboratory training at multiple sites, including grasslands, coastal forests, freshwater ponds, and estuaries.

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

Students will be introduced to fundamental methods for quantifying primary production, decomposition, and element cycling in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Through integrated field and laboratory work, students gain hands-on experience using advanced instrumentation to measure rates of primary production and decomposition, stocks and fluxes of carbon and nitrogen in biomass, soils, and sediments, and key physical and chemical properties that control these processes. Students will engage in rigorous data analysis through collaborative sessions, emphasizing how measurements made at local scales can be scaled to the ecosystem level. Through oral presentations of their experimental results, students will learn to clearly communicate scientific methods, data, and interpretations.

Course Structure

In lectures, discussions, field activities, and laboratory exercises, students will explore the fundamentals of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem functions, including human impacts on these functions and potential strategies to mitigate them.

Topics include:

• Brief history of major ideas contributing to modern ecosystems ecology
• Causes and consequences of global circulation, rainfall, and productivity patterns
• Terrestrial and aquatic primary production as the foundation for diverse life on Earth
• The role of soils and sediments in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, including soil physical and chemical properties, soil horizons, and their roles in ecosystem processes
• Cycling of elements and energy in ecosystems, fueling of life through aerobic and anaerobic respiration and decomposition
• Linkages among global and local carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles via the stoichiometry of ecosystems

Field and laboratory activities

• Week 1: Quantifying biomass of plants (primary producers) at a working  agricultural farm and two surrounding forests
• Week 2: Quantifying light gradients and photosynthesis by plants and scaling up to ecosystem primary productivity, in those same terrestrial ecosystems
• Week 3: Terrestrial soil investigations, including quantifying soil respiration, measuring carbon and nitrogen stocks, and characterizing soil physical and chemical properties and soil horizons
• Week 4: Aquatic ecosystem processes, including measurements of primary production, respiration, and nutrient fluxes in freshwater and estuarine systems

Grading

Weeks 1 & 2 (Cardon)

Weeks 3 & 4 (Koop-Jakobsen)