Meeting Abstract

55.3  Saturday, Jan. 5  Climate change, ecosystem productivity, and tracking resources through consumers and food webs WOLF, B.O.*; WARNE, R; PERSHALL, A; ENGEL, S; Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque wolf@unm.edu

The climate is currently changing at an unprecedented rate and changes in critical factors such as the timing, quantity and predictability of precipitation events, increasing environmental temperatures and CO₂ concentrations will all directly impact primary production. At the ecosystem level, this is importantly mediated by plant photosynthetic pathway and climate induced shifts in the phenology, productivity and quality of resources associated with specific photosynthetic pathways has the potential to importantly influence consumers and entire food webs. We show that the opportunity exists for describing and quantifying these linkages and fluxes using stable isotope approaches and that emerging technologies will enable rapid surveys of whole food webs. We present data on insects, small mammals, lizards and turtles, which show strong seasonal and annual shifts in the reliance of different plant functional groups that is directly related to precipitation inputs and NPP. We argue that understanding the dynamics and consequences of these shifts in resource landscapes for consumers is critical for understanding how climate change will affect individuals, populations and communities.