DURHAM, N.C. – More than 50 Nicholas School faculty members and students will present findings from new research at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), the year’s most important ecological science conference, Aug. 1 to 6, in Portland, Ore.

Faculty or students from the school are listed as lead author or co-author on 35 oral or poster presentations in all. Their topics cover a wide range of timely ecological issues, including global climate change, wetlands ecology, invasive species management, drought cycles’ impact on wildfires, and the effects of nitrogen fertilization on gene abundance and diversity.

, dean and James B. Duke Professor of Biogeochemistry at the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, serves as ESA’s outgoing president.

“Having a dominant presence at the ESA conference is a measure of the Nicholas School’s leadership in environmental science and policy,” he says. “It underscores the fact that no other school in the US can offer the breadth of expertise you will find here.”

ESA is the world’s largest organization of ecologists, with more than 8,100 members. It is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization founded in 1915 to promote ecological science by encouraging communication and collaboration among scientists, increasing public awareness of the field’s relevance, and ensuring the use of sound science in environmental decision making by enhancing communication between scientists and policymakers.

Following is a list of the 23 oral presentations authored or co-authored by Nicholas School or affiliated 91 faculty members and students at ESA this year:

  • “On-Again, Off-again Charcoal Deposition in Northern Great Plains Lakes and Its Relation to Prairie Drought,” by Kendrick J. Brown and James S. Clark;
  • “Linking Microbial Diversity and Soil Biogeochemistry Across Wetland Disturbance Gradients,” by Wyatt H. Hartman, Rytas Vilgalys, Gregory L. Bruland and Curtis J. Richardson;
  • “Effects of N Fertilization on Functional Gene Abundance and Diversity,” by Matthew D. Wallenstein, Rytas Vilgalys and William H. Schlesinger;
  • “Ice Storm Impacts of Carbon Cycling in Pine Forests Under Elevated Carbon Dioxide Nutrients and Thinning,” by Heather McCarthy and Ram Oren;
  • “The Importance of Small Populations in the Postglacial Dynamics of Eastern Forests,” by Jason S. McLachlan, James S. Clark and Paul S. Manos;
  • “Phosphorus Transformations in Ecosystems,” a symposium presentation by Curtis J. Richardson;
  • “Replicating Rothamsted: Towards a Global Soil Network,” by Daniel D. Richter;
  • “Interspecific Competition Among Ant Mutualists: Consequences for a Cactus Producing Extrafloral Nectar,” by William F. Morris and Josh H. Ness;
  • “Lotka-Volterra Community Theory and Species Abundances Patterns,” by Will Wilson;
  • “Learning from Experience: Ecologists’ Roles in Environmental Policy,” by Marion E. Hourdequin;
  • “Spatial Variability of Denitrification and Related Soil Properties in Paired Mitigation and Natural Wetlands,” by Curtis J. Richardson and Gregory L. Bruland;
  • “Population Time Series with Errors, Missing Values and Time Lags,” by James S. Clark;
  • “Light Heterogeneity in Forest Gaps: The Impact of Damaged Tree Demography,” by Michael C. Dietze;
  • “Organic N Assimilation in a Temperate Forest,” by Kirsten S. Hofmockel, William H. Schlesinger and Robert B. Jackson;
  • “Can Longterm Change in Stream N Processing Affect Watershed N Exports?,” by Emily S. Bernhardt;
  • “Evolution of Dispersal Distance Resulting in a Stable State with Metapopulation Dynamics,” by Curtis A. Smith and William G. Wilson;
  • “Small-scale Nutrient Patchiness and Plant Performance: Effects of Vertical Heterogeneity on the Performance and Competitive Response of Different Plant functional Types,” by Fernando T. Maestre, Mark A. Bradford and James F. Reynolds;
  • “Modeling Sensitivity of Sea Level Rise Inundation to Grain Size, Percolation Method and LiDAR Error,” by Benjamin Poulter and Patrick N. Halpin;
  • “Ecohydrology of Semiarid Woodlands and Recharge of the Edwards Aquifer,” a symposium presentation by Robert B. Jackson;
  • “Can One Plant Species Rescue Another from Low-density Effects on Pollinator Visitation and Fruit set?,” by Tracy S. Feldman;
  • “Can Water-Limitation Alone Explain Woody-Herbaceous Vegetation Patterns Along a Large-Scale Rainfall Gradient in Southern Africa?,” by Christopher A. Williams, John D. Albertson and Amilcare Porporato;
  • “The Biogeography of Soil Microbial Communities,” by Noah Fierer and Robert B. Jackson;
  • “Effect of Predator Behavior on Spatial Scales and Stability,” by Jennifer A. Nelson and William G. Wilson.