Publications by authors named "K E Kimmel"
The use of trait-based approaches to understand ecological communities has increased in the past two decades because of their promise to preserve more information about community structure than taxonomic methods and their potential to connect community responses to subsequent effects of ecosystem functioning. Though trait-based approaches are a powerful tool for describing ecological communities, many important properties of commonly-used trait metrics remain unexamined. Previous work with simulated communities and trait distributions shows sensitivity of functional diversity measures to the number and correlation of traits used to calculate them, but these relationships have yet to be studied in actual plant communities with a realistic distribution of trait values, ecologically meaningful covariation of traits, and a realistic number of traits available for analysis.
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- Understanding how plant communities react to global changes is essential for predicting future ecosystem dynamics.
- The CoRRE Trait Data includes information on 17 plant traits for 4,079 vascular plant species from grassland experiments worldwide.
- This dataset can help researchers explore the effects of global change on diverse plant populations and ecosystems.
Excellent self-rated health has been associated with decreased mortality and positive health outcomes in adults. However, less is known about youth populations. The FLASHE study, conducted by the National Cancer Institute, is a cross-sectional survey with publicly available self-reported data.
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- Climate change is making droughts (periods without rain) happen more often and for longer periods of time, which is bad for ecosystems.
- Scientists did a big experiment in many places around the world to see how one year of drought affects grasslands and shrublands.
- They found that extreme drought can reduce plant growth much more than expected, especially in dry areas with fewer types of plants, showing that these places are more at risk.