Hello y saludos to all,

Welcome to the Mechanisms Theme group! You have all selected Mechanisms as your first choice, and have gotten this as your project theme. I'm looking forward to working with you as the Theme faculty member along with Fabrice DeClerk from CATIE. We have 6 student members (Beatriz, Carlos, Luz Astid, and Diego from CATIE, Oliver from UCSB, and Kumar from UT).

As first steps towards moving on with our project, I have two things to request from all of you:
1) A list of all of the times that you are available to meet for weekly online discussions (list all between 8am EST - 7pm EST).
2) If you are interested in being the Student Theme Leader for mechanisms, please send me a 1-2 paragraph description including why you want to be the theme leader, what experience you have with the mechanisms theme, and why you think that you would be a good theme leader. I will need this by next Tuesday (Feb. 20, am).

In the next week, I will organize an additional presenation (with notes) that you can view online. Also, I will be assigning a few readings (Workspace > Themes > Mechanisms > Week 5 Readings) for next week relating to the group projects that I suggested in the introductory lectures. We should be able to find a time for an online class meeting next week so that we can get started right away on our project. Even before next week, all students (and Fabrice) should feel free to contribute their ideas for group projects, post comments, and to post papers that they think the group should read. There is now a discussion forum specifically for the mechanisms group, and all posting should be done in the Mechanisms folder. In the next few weeks, we will need to figure out what question we will focus on for the group project, who will be the theme leader, how we will carry out the anlaysis etc. This workplan is due approximately 2-3 weeks from now.

Please check the web page frequently for updates and discussions,
Cheers and welcome,
Stacy

also - if you'd all like to take a few mintues to introduce yourselves to eachother, and to tell us why you are interested in the mechanisms theme, this might get us started...

Hi Fabrice here. Thanks to Stacy for organizing all of this. I'm currently a faculty member at CATIE in Costa Rica where I work on biodiversity conservation and ecosystem function in pasture landscapes. I've been very interested in biodiversity and ecosystem function for quite a while now and have conducted some research in upper montane conifer forests in the Sierra Nevada on conifer diversity's impact on stand productivity, stability and resource use efficiency. I used Loreau and Hector's partitioning of the sampling and complementary effects with pretty good results in my search for mechanisms and came to the conclusion that both effects were present, but with different stregnths at different stages of stand development. More recently my interest in BEF has led me to ask how we can use biodiversity as a tool for development and poverty alleviation with the Earht Institute at Comlumbia University. This meant trying to understand how biodiversity influences a variety of ecosystem functions - and of course more importantly trying to understand the mechanisms that drive these relationships. Thus my interest in this group. I'm also heading the functional diversity group (part of the search for mechanisms) and the carbon group, but I hope to be able to join you for the weekly discussions.

I enjoyed the various intro slides which got me thinking about different mechanisms, particularly the China example where biodiversity's effect was to create a more turbulent surface area over the rice, which decreased the incidence of disease. I had become so accustomed to looking for biotic mechanisms that I guess I found it interesting that biodiversity can also have mechanical effects.

Cheers,
Fabrice

Hi everyone - This is Stacy. I'm currently a faculty member at the University of Toledo in the Department of Environmental Sciences. My main interests include insect community ecology and finding links between agrecology and conservation. Most of my recent research has taken place in coffee agroecosystems in Chiapas, Mexico and also in Sumatra, Indonesia with the aim of investigating the impacts of coffee management intensification and coffee certification schemes on ant and bird biodiversity and trophic interactions. Specifically, I have spent a lot of time looking at the role of ants and birds as predators, and how predatory function changes with changes in habitat complexity and species diversity. I was a grad student at the University of Michgian, and just before coming to Toledo was a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center in Washington. I also have a strong interest in urban agroecology (gardens), and in understanding the role of urban green spaces in protecting biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Cheers,
Stacy