The dominant paradigm for explaining vegetation pattern in salt marshes is that there is a tradeoff between competitive ability and stress tolerance, leading to vegetation zones along a single gradient of increasing flooding and salinity from high to low marsh. This single-gradient paradigm breaks down, however, when the salinity gradient is decoupled from the flooding gradient, as happens following disturbance or at low latitudes.

The study examines farmers’ willingness to accept compensation to adapt environmental stewardship practices in Michigan based on the analysis of survey data and advances the literature on adoption of agro-environmental practices by developing a supply function for crop acreage managed for environmental stewardship. Results show that farmers’ acreage enrollment depends chiefly on farm size and the perception of environmental improvements from the practices.

Both natural processes (e.g., erosion, vegetative succession) and human processes (e.g., prehistoric shell deposition, modern clearing) have impacted the structure of back-barrier islands on the coast of Georgia. Both types of processes have occurred continually throughout the past and present. Present-day-back-barrier islands cannot be understood without a thorough knowledge of their landscape history. For a full understanding of coastal ecosystems, they need to be viewed as human ecosystems that are the result of both natural and human processes.

Permafrost plays an important role in shaping the chemistry of streams by restricting subsurface flows through catchments to soils. During the summer thaw of soil, subsurface flows migrate through deeper soil horizons presumably resulting in seasonal shifts in the inputs of carbon and nitrogen to the streams. Within streams, the extent of the hyporheic zone may also shift with seasonal thaw. Hyporheic zones have high mineralization and nitrification rates; thus expansion of the hyporheic zone throughout the season has important implications for stream chemistry.

Rates of biogeochemical cycling in desert ecosystems are inherently constrained by water availability. Water pulses resulting from discrete climate events therefore can significantly alter biogeochemical processes. The McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, a polar desert region, have experienced discrete warming events that resulted in episodic pulses of water made available through permafrost and snow melt.