Springing forward

Scientist Shaun collecting phenology data in the climate change experiment. He is recording the date that the first flowers emerge for dame’s rocket.

Sean Mooney, a high school researcher, collecting phenology data in the climate change experiment. He is recording the date that the first flowers emerge for dame’s rocket.

The Reading Level 1 activities are as follows:

The Reading Level 3 activities are as follows:

Éste Data Nugget también está disponible en Español:

Every day we add more greenhouse gases to our air when we burn fossil fuels like oil, coal, and natural gas. Greenhouse gasses trap the sun’s heat, so as we add more the Earth is heating up! What does climate change mean for the species on our planet? The timing of life cycle events for plants and animals, like flowering and migration, is largely determined by cues organisms take from the environment. The timing of these events is called phenology. Scientists studying phenology are interested in how climate change will influence different species. For example, with warming temperatures and more unpredictable transitions between seasons, what can we expect to happen to the migration timings of birds, mating seasons for animals, or flowering times of plants?

Scientists collecting phenology data in the climate change experiment. They are recording the date that the first flowers emerge for dame’s rocket.

Scientists collecting phenology data in the climate change experiment.

Plants are the foundation for almost all life on Earth. Through photosynthesis, plants produce the oxygen (O2) that we breathe, food for their own growth and development, food for animals and microbes, and crops that provide food and materials for human society. Because plants are so important to life, we need to find out how climate change could affect them. One good place to start is by looking at flowering plants, guided by the question, how will increased temperatures affect the phenology of flowering? One possible answer to this question is that the date that flowers first emerge for a species is driven by temperature. If this relationship is real, we would expect flowers to emerge earlier each year as temperatures increase due to climate change. But if flowers come out earlier and earlier each year, this could greatly impact plant reproduction and could cause problems for pollinators who count on plants flowering at the same time the pollinators need the pollen for food.

Shaun, Mark, Elizabeth, and Jen are scientists in Michigan who wanted to know if higher temperatures would lead to earlier flowering dates for plants. They chose to look at flowers of dame’s rocket, a leafy plant that is related to the plants we use to make mustard! Mark planted dame’s rocket in eight plots of land. Plots were randomly assigned to one of two treatments. Half of the plots were left to experience normal temperatures (normal), while the other four received a heating treatment to simulate climate change (heated). Air temperatures in heated plots increased by 3°C, which mimics climate change projections for what Michigan will experience by the end of the century. Mark, Elizabeth, and Jen measured the date that each plant produced its first flower, and the survival of each plant. The scientists predicted that dame’s rocket growing in the heated plots would flower earlier than those in the normal plots.

 Featured scientists: Shaun Davis from Thornapple Kellogg Middle School and Mark Hammond, Elizabeth Schultheis, and Jen Lau from Michigan State University

Flesch–Kincaid Reading Grade Level = The Reading Level 3 activity has a score of 9.2; the Level 1 has a 6.4.

Flowers of Hesperis matronalis (dame’s rocket), a species of mustard that was introduced to the U.S. from Eurasia.

Flowers of Hesperis matronalis (dame’s rocket), a species of mustard that was introduced to the U.S. from Eurasia.

Additional teacher resources related to this Data Nugget include:

  • If you would like your students to interact with the raw data, we have attached the original data here. The file also includes weather data over the course of the experiment if students want to ask and explore independent questions.

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Marvelous mud

mud

You can tell that the mud in this picture is high in organic matter because it is dark brown and mucky (in real life you’d be able to smell it, too!)

The activities are as follows:

The goopy, mucky, often stinky mud at the bottom of a wetland or lake is a very important part of the ecosystem. Wetland mud is much more than just wet dirt. For example, many species of microbes live in the wetland mud where they decompose (breakdown) dead plant and animal material to obtain energy. This dead plant and animal material is called organic matter. However, the wetland mud microbes do not have all the oxygen they need to decompose the plant and animal tissues quickly and efficiently. Because of this, the dead material in wetland mud decomposes much more slowly than similar dead material in dry soil.

A successful core! You can see that the tube has mud, as well as some of the water from the wetland that was on top of the mud.

A successful core! You can see that the tube has mud, as well as some of the water from the wetland that was on top of the mud.

As a graduate student, Lauren became fascinated with wetland mud and its interesting properties. She wanted to know how important all the mud and its organic matter is for wetlands. By talking with other members of her lab and reading scientific papers, Lauren learned that wetland mud can often be high in the element phosphorus and that phosphorus acts as a fertilizer for plants, including wetland plants and algae. However, nutrients, such as phosphorus can build up in wetland mud. Lauren thought it might be possible that the organic matter in the mud was the source of all the phosphorus in some wetlands. She predicted that wetlands with more organic matter would have more phosphorus. If her data support her hypothesis, it could mean that organic matter is very important for wetlands, because nutrients are needed for algae and plants to grow.

Although most mud is high in organic matter and nutrients, not all mud is the same. There is natural variation in the amount of organic matter and nutrients from place to place. Even within the same location mud can be very different in spots. Lauren used this variability to test her ideas. She measured organic matter and phosphorus in mud from 16 freshwater locations (four lakes, five ponds, and seven wetlands). She took cores that allowed her to sample mud deep into the ground. She then brought her cores back to the lab and measured organic matter and phosphorus levels in her samples.

Featured scientist: Lauren Kinsman-Costello from Kent State University

Flesch–Kincaid Reading Grade Level = 9.8

More photos associated with this research can be found here. There is one scientific paper associated with the data in this Data Nugget. The citation and PDF of the paper is below:

Kinsman-Costello LE, J O’Brien, SK Hamilton (2014) Re-flooding a Historically Drained Wetland Leads to Rapid Sediment Phosphorus Release. Ecosystems 17:641-656

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Is chocolate for the birds?

Cocoa beans used to make chocolate!

Cocoa beans used to make chocolate!

The activities are as follows:

About 9,000 years ago humans invented agriculture as a way to grow enough food for people to eat. Today, agriculture happens all over the globe and takes up 40% of Earth’s land surface. To make space for our food, humans must clear large areas of land, which creates a drastic change, or disturbance, to the habitat. This land-clearing disturbance removes the native plants already there including trees, small flowering plants, and grasses. Many types of animals including mammals, birds, and insects depend on these native plants for food or shelter. Large scale disturbances can make it difficult to live in the area. For example, a woodpecker bird cannot live somewhere that has no trees because they live and find their food in the trees.

However, some agriculture might help some animals because they can use the crops being grown for the food and shelter they need to survive. One example is the cacao tree, which grows in the rainforests of South America. Humans use the seeds of this plant to make chocolate, so it is a very important crop! Cacao trees need very little light. They grow best in a unique habitat called the forest understory, which is composed of the shorter trees and bushes under the large trees found in rainforests. To get a lot of cacao seeds for chocolate, farmers need to have large rainforest trees above their cacao trees for shade. In many ways, cacao farms resemble a native rainforest. Many native plant species grow there and there are still taller tree species. However, these farms are different in important ways from a native rainforest. For example, there are many more short understory trees in the farm than there are in native rainforests. Also, there are fewer small flowering plants on the ground because humans that work on cacao farms trample them as they walk around the farm.

rainforest and cacao plantation

Part I: Skye is a biologist who wanted to know whether rainforest birds use the forest when they are disturbed by adding cacao farms. Skye predicted she would see many fewer birds in the cacao farms, compared to the rainforest. To measure bird abundance, she simply counted birds in each habitat. To do this she chose one rainforest and one cacao farm and set up two transects in each. Transects are parallel lines along which the measurements are taken. She spent four days counting birds along each transect, for a total of eight days in each habitat. She had to get up really early and count birds between 6:00 and 9:00 in the morning because that’s when they are most active.

Part II: Skye was shocked to see so many birds in cacao farms! She decided to take a closer look at her data. Skye wanted to know how the types of birds she saw in the cacao farms compared to the types of birds she saw in the rainforest. She predicted that cacao farms would have different types of birds than the undisturbed rainforest. She thought the bird types would differ because each habitat has different types of food available for birds to eat and different types of plants for birds to live in.

Skye broke her abundance data down to look more closely at four types of birds:

  1. Toucans (Eat: large insects and fruit from large trees, Live: holes in large trees)
  2. Hummingbirds (Eat: nectar from flowers, Live: tree branches and leaves)
  3. Wrens (Eat: small insects, Live: small shrubs on the forest floor)
  4. Flycatchers (Eat: Small insects, Live: tree branches and leaves)

skyecacao

Featured scientist: Skye Greenler from Colorado College and Purdue University

Flesch–Kincaid Reading Grade Level = 8.5

Additional teacher resources related to this Data Nugget:

  • The research described in this activity has been published. The citation and a PDF of the scientific paper can be found here:
  • The complete dataset for the study has been published to a data repository and is available for classroom use. This dataset has even more data than what is in the Data Nugget activity. While the Data Nugget has data for just two habitats (cacao and rainforest), the full dataset also includes two other agroforest habitat types. The dataset also includes data for every species (169) recorded during the study, whereas the Data Nugget only has data for four families (toucans, wrens, flycatchers, hummingbirds).
  • Study Location: Skye’s study took place in a 10 km2 mixed rainforest, pasture, agro-forest, and monoculture landscape near the village of Pueblo Nuevo de Villa Franca de Guácimo, Limón Province, Costa Rica (10˚20˝ N, 83˚20˝ W), in the Caribbean lowlands 85 km northeast of San José.
  • For more background on the importance of biodiversity, students can eat this article in The Guardian – What is biodiversity and why does it matter to us?

About Skye: As a child Skye was always asking why; questioning the behavior, characteristics, and interactions of plants and animals around her.  She spent her childhood reconstructing deer skeletons to understand how bones and joints functioned and creating endless mini-ecosystems in plastic bottles to watch how they changed over time.  This love of discovery, observation, questioning, and experimentation led her to many technician jobs, independent research projects, and graduate research study at Purdue University.  At Purdue she studies the factors influencing oak regeneration after ecologically based timber harvest and prescribed fire.  While Skye’s primary focus is ecological research, she loves getting to leave the lab and bring science into classrooms to inspire the next generation of young scientists and encourage all students to be always asking why!

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Coral bleaching and climate change

A Pacific coral reef with many corals

A Pacific coral reef with many corals

The activities are as follows:

Éste Data Nugget también está disponible en Español:

Corals are animals that build coral reefs. Coral reefs are home to many species of animals – fish, sharks, sea turtles, and anemones all use corals for habitat! Corals are white, but they look brown and green because certain types of algae live inside them. Algae, like plants, use the sun’s energy to make food. The algae that live inside the corals’ cells are tiny and produce more sugars than they themselves need. The extra sugars become food for the corals. At the same time, the corals provide the algae a safe home. The algae and corals coexist in a relationship where each partner benefits the other, called a mutualism: these species do better together than they would alone.

When the water gets too warm, the algae can no longer live inside corals, so they leave. The corals then turn from green to white, called coral bleaching. Climate change has been causing the Earth’s air and oceans to get warmer. With warmer oceans, coral bleaching is becoming more widespread. If the water stays too warm, bleached corals will die without their algae mutualists.

Scientist Carly working on a coral reef

Scientist Carly working on a coral reef

Carly is a scientist who wanted to study coral bleaching so she could help protect corals and coral reefs. One day, Carly observed an interesting pattern. Corals on one part of a reef were bleaching while corals on another part of the reef stayed healthy. She wondered, why some corals and their algae can still work together when the water is warm, while others cannot?

Ocean water that is closer to the shore (inshore) gets warmer than water that is further away (offshore). Perhaps corals and algae from inshore reefs have adapted to warm water. Carly wondered whether inshore corals are better able to work with their algae in warm water because they have adapted to these temperatures. If so, inshore corals and algae should bleach less often than offshore corals and algae. Carly designed an experiment to test this. She collected 15 corals from inshore and 15 from offshore reefs in the Florida Keys. She brought them into an aquarium lab for research. She cut each coral in half and put half of each coral into tanks with normal water and the other half into tanks with heaters. The normal water temperature was 27°C, which is a temperature that both inshore and offshore corals experience during the year. The warm water tanks were at 31°C, which is a temperature that inshore corals experience, but offshore corals have never previously experienced. Because of climate change, offshore corals may experience this warmer temperature in the future. After six weeks, she recorded the number of corals that bleached in each tank.

 Featured scientist: Carly Kenkel from The University of Texas at Austin

Flesch–Kincaid Reading Grade Level = 8.0

There are two scientific papers associated with the data in this Data Nugget. The citations and PDFs of the papers are below. 

If your students are looking for more data on coral bleaching, check out HHMI BioInteractive’s classroom activity in which students use authentic data to assess the threat of coral bleaching around the world. Also, check out the two videos below!

  • Another BioInteractive video, appropriate for upper level high school classrooms. Visualizes the process of coral bleaching at different scales. Video includes lots of complex vocabulary about cells and the process of photosynthesis.

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Float down the Kalamazoo River

Morrow Lake, a reservoir created along the Kalamazoo River. The water is held in a reservoir by a dam. When water flows into the reservoir it slows, potentially letting some of the total suspended solids settle to the bottom of the river.

Morrow Lake, a reservoir created along the Kalamazoo River. The water is held in a reservoir by a dam. When water flows into the reservoir it slows, potentially letting some of the total suspended solids settle to the bottom of the river.

The activities are as follows:

Ever since she was a kid, rivers have fascinated Leila. One of her hobbies is to kayak and canoe down the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, near where she lives. For her work, she researches all the living things in the river and how humans affect them. She is especially interested in changes in the river food web, caused by humans building dams along the river, and an oil spill in 2010.

Leila knows there is a lot more in river water than what meets the eye! As the river flows, it picks up bits of dead plants, single-celled algae, and other living and nonliving particles from the bottom of the river. The mix of all these particles is called total suspended solids (TSS) because these particles are suspended in the river water as it flows. The food web in the Kalamazoo River depends on the particles that are floating in the water. Invertebrates eat decomposing leaves and algae, and fish eat the invertebrates.

Leila showing off some of the cool invertebrates that can be found in the Kalamazoo River.

Leila showing off some of the cool invertebrates that can be found in the Kalamazoo River.

As you float down the river, particles settle to the river bottom and new ones are picked up. The amount of suspended solids in a river is influenced by how fast the water in the river is flowing. The faster the water flows, the more particles are picked up and carried down the river. The slower the water flows, the more particles will settle to the bottom. Discharge is a measure of how fast water is flowing. You can think about discharge as the number of cubes (one foot on each side) filled with water that pass by a point every second. During certain times of the year, water flows faster and there is more discharge. In spring, when the snow starts melting, a lot of water drains from the land into the river. There also tends to be a lot more rain in the fall. Things humans build on the river can also affect discharge. For example, we build dams to generate hydroelectric power by capturing the energy from flowing water. Dams slow the flow of river water, and therefore they may cause some of the suspended solids to settle out of the water and onto the bottom of the river.

Leila wanted to test how a dam that was built on the Kalamazoo River influenced total suspended solids. If the dam is reducing the amount of total suspended solids, it could have negative effects on the food chain. She was also curious to see if the dam has different effects depending on the time of year. On eight different days from May to October in 2009, Leila measured total suspended solids at two locations along river. She collected water samples upstream of the dam, before the water enters the reservoir, and samples downstream after the water has been in the reservoir and passed over the dam. She also measured discharge downstream of the dam.

KalamazooRiver

Featured scientist: Leila Desotelle from Michigan State University

Flesch–Kincaid Reading Grade Level = 8.7

If your students are looking for more information on how the amount of water flowing in the river affects the food chain and the health of the ecosystem overall, check out the video below!

Fertilizing biofuels may cause release of greenhouse gasses

An aerial view of the experiment at MSU where biofuels are grown

An aerial view of the experiment at MSU where biofuels are grown. Photo credit: K. Stepnitz, MSU

The activities are as follows:

Greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, like carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), trap heat from the sun and warm the earth. We need some greenhouse gases to keep the planet warm enough for life. But today, the majority (97%) of scientists agree that the levels of greenhouse gases are getting dangerously high and are causing changes in our climate that may be hard for us to adjust to.

Scientist Leilei collecting samples of gasses released by the growing of biofuels

Scientist Leilei collecting samples of gasses released by the growing of biofuels. Photo credit: K. Stepnitz, MSU

When we burn fuels to heat and cool our homes or power our cars we release greenhouse gasses. Most of the energy used today comes from fossil fuels. These energy sources are called “fossil” fuels because they come from plants, algae, and animals that lived hundreds of millions of years ago! After they died, their tissues were buried and slowly turned into coal, oil, and natural gas. An important fact about fossil fuels is that when we use them, they release CO2 into our atmosphere that was stored millions of years ago. The release of this stored carbon is adding more and more greenhouse gases to our atmosphere, and much faster than today’s plants and algae can remove during photosynthesis. In order to reduce the effects of climate change, we need to change the way we use energy and think of new ways to power our world.

One potential solution could be to grow our fuel instead of drilling for it. Biofuels are a potential substitute for fossil fuels. Biofuels, like fossil fuels, are made from the tissues of plants. The big difference is that they are made from plants that are alive and growing today. Unlike fossil fuels that emit CO2, biofuel crops first remove CO2 from the atmosphere as the plants grow and photosynthesize. When biofuels are burned for fuel, the CO2 is emitted back into the atmosphere, balancing the total amount that was removed and released.

Scientists are interested in figuring out if biofuels make a good replacement for fossil fuels. It is still not clear if the plants that are used to produce biofuels are able to absorb enough CO2 to offset all of the greenhouse gases that are emitted when biofuels are produced. Additional greenhouse gases are emitted when producing biofuels because it takes energy to plant, water, and harvest the crops, as well as to convert them into fuel. In order to maximize plant growth, many biofuel crops are fertilized by adding nitrogen (N) fertilizer to the soil. However, if there is too much nitrogen in the soil for the crops to take up, it may instead be released into the atmosphere as the gas nitrous oxide (N2O). N2O is a greenhouse gas with a global warming potential nearly 300 times higher than CO2! Global warming potential is a relative measure of how much heat a greenhouse gas traps in the atmosphere.

Leilei is a scientist who researches whether biofuels make a good alternative to fossil fuels. He wondered what steps farmers could take to reduce the amount of N2O released when growing biofuel crops. Leilei designed an experiment to determine how much N2O is emitted when different amounts of nitrogen fertilizer are added to the soil. In other words, he wanted to know whether the amount of N2O that is emitted into the atmosphere is associated with how much fertilizer is added to the field. To test this idea, he looked at fields of switchgrass, a perennial grass native to North America. Switchgrass is one of the most promising biofuel crops. The fields of switchgrass were first planted in 2008 as a part of a very large long-term study at the Kellogg Biological Station in southwest Michigan. The researchers set up eight fertilization treatments (0, 28, 56, 84, 112, 140, 168, and 196 kg N ha−1) in four replicate fields of switchgrass, for a total of 32 research plots. Leilei measured how much N2O was released by the soil in the 32 research plots for many years. Here we have two years of Leilei’s data.

Featured scientist: Leilei Ruan from Michigan State University

Flesch–Kincaid Reading Grade Level = 10.1

Additional teacher resources related to this Data Nugget:

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Do invasive species escape their enemies?

One of the invasive plants found in the experiment, Dianthus armeria

One of the invasive plants found in the experiment, Dianthus armeria

The activities are as follows:

Invasive species, like zebra mussels and garlic mustard, are species that have been introduced by humans to a new area. Where they invade they cause harm. For example, invasive species outcompete native species and reduce diversity, damage habitats, and interfere with human interests. Damage from invasive species costs the United States over $100 billion per year.

Scientists want to know, what makes an invasive species become such a problem once it is introduced? Is there something that is different for an invasive species compared to native species that have not been moved to a new area? Many things change for an invasive species when it is introduced somewhere new. For example, a plant that is moved across oceans may not bring enemies (like disease, predators, and herbivores) along for the ride. Now that the plant is in a new area with no enemies, it may do very well and become invasive.

laulab

Scientists at Michigan State University wanted to test whether invasive species are successful because they have escaped their enemies. They predicted invasive species would get less damage from enemies, compared to native species that still live near to their enemies. If native plants have tons of insects that can eat them, while an invasive plant has few or none, this would support enemy escape explaining invasiveness. However, if researchers find that native and invasive species have the same levels of herbivory, this would no support enemy escape. To test this hypothesis, a lab collected data on invasive and native plant species in Kalamazoo County. They measured how many insects were found on each species of plant, and the percent of leaves that had been damaged by insect herbivores. The data they collected is found below and can be used to test whether invasive plants are successful because they get less damage from insects compared to native plants.

Featured scientist: Elizabeth Schultheis from Michigan State University

Flesch–Kincaid Reading Grade Level = 11.3

  • For a lesson plan on the Enemy Release Hypothesis, click here.
  • The Denver Museum of Nature and Science has a short video giving background on invasive species, here

Do insects prefer local or foreign foods?

One of the invasive plants found in the experiment, Centaurea stoebe.

One of the invasive plants found in the experiment, Centaurea stoebe.

The activities are as follows:

Insects that feed on plants, called herbivores, can have big effects on how plants grow. Herbivory can change the size and shape of plants, the number of flowers and seeds, and even which plant species can survive in a habitat. A plant with leaves eaten by insect herbivores will likely do worse than a plant that is not eaten.

Plants that naturally grow in an area without human interference are called native plants. When a plant is moved by humans to a new area and lives and grows outside of its natural range, it is called an exotic plant. Sometimes exotic plants become invasive, meaning they grow large and fast, take over habitats, and push out native species. What determines if an exotic species will become invasive? Scientists are very interested in this question. Understanding what makes a species become invasive could help control invasions already underway and prevent new ones in the future.

Because herbivory affects how big and fast a plant can grow, local herbivores may determine if an exotic plant thrives in its new habitat and becomes invasive. Elizabeth, a plant biologist, is fascinated by invasive species and wanted to know why they are able to grow bigger and faster than native and other exotic species. One possibility, she thought, is that invasive species are not recognized by the local insect herbivores as good food sources and thus get less damage from the insects. Escaping herbivory could allow invasive species to grow more and may explain how they become invasive.

To test this hypothesis, Elizabeth planted 25 native, 25 exotic, and 11 invasive species in a field in Michigan. This field was already full of many plants and had many insect herbivores. The experimental plants grew from 2011 to 2013. Each year, Elizabeth measured herbivory on 10 individuals of each of the 61 species, for a total of 610 plants. To measure herbivory, she looked at the leaves on each plant and determined how much of each leaf was eaten by herbivores. She then compared the area that was eaten to the total area of the leaf and calculated the proportion leaf area eaten by herbivores. Elizabeth predicted that invasive species would have a lower proportion of leaf area eaten compared to native and noninvasive exotic plants.

ERHpics

Featured scientist: Elizabeth Schultheis from Michigan State University

Flesch–Kincaid Reading Grade Level = 10.9

There is one scientific paper associated with the data in this Data Nugget. The citation and PDF of the paper is below, as well as a link to access the full dataset from the study:

For two lesson plans covering the Enemy Release Hypothesis, click here and here

Aerial view of the experiments discussed in this activity:

ERH Field site 2

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