What are the causes and consequences of diversity in plant communities

What are the causes and consequences of diversity in plant communities?

Katherine L. Gross

University Distinguished Professor, Plant Biology; Acting Director, Kellogg Biological Station

Population and Community Ecology

I am a plant ecologist interested in the processes that influence the diversity and composition of plant communities. Much of my research has been in successional old-fields and so I am particularly interested in factors that determine the dynamics of plant communities. I have a doctorate in Zoology and I think this training gives me a different perspective on plant communities than traditionally trained plant ecologists.

I am currently involved in a long-term project in agricultural ecology (the KBS LTER) in which we are investigating how plant diversity varies across agricultural systems with different types of management. As part of this project, I am working with researchers from the MSU Center for Microbial Ecology (CME) to determine how changes in plant species diversity and composition influence soil microbial communities and how this relates to ecosystem processes such a N-mineralization rates. I am also interested in the consequences of spatial heterogeneity in resources: how plants exploit this heterogeneity and the effect it has on diversity. Although most of my past work has focused on successional and disturbed systems, I am beginning to work in native systems that occur along a habitat/productivity gradient from sand-prairies to forests in southwestern Michigan and to focus more emphasis on the implications for conservation of biological diversity.

Selected Publications

Gross, K.L. 1990. A comparison of methods for estimating soil seed banks. Journal of Ecology 78:1079-1093.

Gross, K.L., A. Peters and K.S. Pregitzer. 1993. Fine root growth and demographic responses to nutrient heterogeneity in four old-field plant species. Oecologia 95:61-64.

Robertson, G.P. and K.L. Gross. 1994. Assessing heterogeneity in below-ground resources: Quantifying pattern and scale. In Exploitation of Environmental Heterogeneity by Plants, M.M. Caldwell and R.W. Pearcy (eds.), pp. 237-254. Academic Press, NY.

Gross, K.L., K.S. Pregitzer and A.J. Burton. 1995. Spatial variation in nitrogen availability in three successional plant communities. Journal of Ecology 83:347-367.

Foster, B.L. and K.L. Gross. 1997. Partitioning the effects of plant biomass and litter on Andropogon gerardi in old-field vegetation. Ecology 78:2091-2104.