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1. Climate warming and drought modify galling effects on tall goldenrod

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-026-05889-3  

   Parker, Emily G; Dobson, Kara C; Young, Moriah L; Hammond, Mark D; Zarnetske, Phoebe L (April 2026, Oecologia)

   Abstract Plants must respond to changing climatic conditions while continuing to defend against herbivores. While numerous studies have investigated how one type of stress affects plants, the effects of multiple abiotic and biotic stressors and their interactions are less understood. We used the Rainfall Exclusion eXperiment (REX) at the Kellogg Biological Station Long-Term Ecological Research site (KBS LTER) to quantify the individual and interactive effects of drought and warming treatments (abiotic stressors), and galling byRhopalomyia solidaginis(biotic stress) on tall goldenrod (Solidago altissima), a common native plant species in Michigan, USA. At the end of the 2021 and 2022 growing seasons, we measured stem height and biomass as a proxy for plant productivity, and seed mass per stem as a proxy for reproductive fitness. We also measured gall biomass, larval chamber number, and larval chamber volume to reflect the effects of drought and warming on the gallmaker. We found that warming mitigated some negative galling effects; galled plants were 7.1 cm shorter than non-galled plants in ambient conditions, but under warming, there was no reduction in height for galled plants. Furthermore, drought exacerbated some galling effects: galled plants experiencing drought conditions had the lowest probability of producing seeds (0.47) compared to plants from all other treatments. Understanding how plants respond to individual abiotic and biotic stressors as well as their interactions will enhance our ability to predict plant fitness and community dynamics under new climate regimes. 

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2. Volatile Organic Compound Emissions From Solidago altissima Under Experimental Warming and Drought

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.72422  

   Dobson, Kara C; Zarnetske, Phoebe L (November 2025, Ecology and Evolution)

   ABSTRACT Plant volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions are important mediators for plant interactions with biotic and abiotic factors in the environment. Changes in VOC emissions can be caused by factors associated with climate change, such as warming and drought. However, we currently lack an understanding of how warming and drought affect plants' emissions in their natural environment, let alone how these climate factors may interact to synergistically affect emissions. To fill these knowledge gaps, we measured VOC emissions from tall goldenrod (Solidago altissima) in an early successional plant community under four climate treatments: ambient control, warmed, drought, and warmed + drought. Treatments were applied in situ using open‐top chambers for warming and rainout shelters for drought. Drought treatments (drought and warmed + drought) have a stronger effect on VOC emissions compared to nondrought treatments (ambient and warmed). Furthermore, while the overall abundance of VOCs did not differ between treatments, there were specific compounds associated with one or more climate treatments. For example, diisopropyl adipate was more abundant in the drought and warmed + drought treatments. Our study shows that in goldenrod, drought may have a stronger effect than warming on VOC emissions, but moreover, that specific compounds are especially sensitive to certain climate treatments. However, additional experimentation is necessary to validate the functions associated with the affected compounds. These findings demonstrate that climate change alters chemical emissions, which in turn could have implications for ecosystem functioning via changes in plant–plant communication, plant–insect interactions, and overall plant fitness. 

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3. Plant functional traits from an early successional grassland community at KBS LTER

   https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.47d7wm3vk  

   Perez, Sierra; Lau, Jennifer (January 2026, Dryad)

   Identifying the factors mediating the resilience and invariability of plant communities and their associated ecosystem functions is critical to understand the ecological impacts of climate change. Prior work has explored how classic “community properties” (characterizing a community by species composition) regulate the resilience and invariability of ecosystem functioning. Mechanistically, community properties influence resilience and invariability via species’ traits, and as a result, “functional properties” (characterizing a community via functional traits) might better predict these qualities. For example, functional traits associated with conservative resource-use strategies (e.g., short stature, low specific leaf area (SLA), high leaf dry matter content (LDMC)) are expected to promote both resistance to periods of stress or resource limitation and long-term invariability. While there is a strong conceptual basis linking functional traits and functional diversity to resilience and invariability, empirical evidence is thus far mixed, and sourcing accurate functional trait data may be challenging. Therefore, it is important to know if community properties are sufficient for evaluating the resilience and invariability of ecosystem functioning, or if functional properties provide necessary insights. Capitalizing on a decades-long study, we tested the effects of plant functional and community properties on the resistance of ecosystem functioning (a component of resilience) to drought or long-term invariability. Including functional properties did not improve our ability to explain primary productivity resistance to droughts but considerably improved our explanatory power for productivity invariability. Our results supported expectations that conservative trait strategies promote ecosystem functioning resistance to perturbations and temporal invariability. These findings highlight that the utility of functional properties in explaining the resilience and invariability of ecosystem functioning may depend on the attribute under consideration and that functional properties may primarily be useful for identifying the traits promoting resilience and invariability. In July 2024, we sampled functional traits of 31 plant species in the KBS LTER Main Cropping System Experiment (MCSE) early successional (T7) plots in Hickory Corners, MI, USA. Traits were measured from a minimum of 3 randomly selected individuals per species, and if possible, we sampled one individual per species per T7 replicate to account for spatial environmental variation (i.e., n = 3–6 individuals/species). For each plant, we measured height (cm) as the distance from ground to top of foliage, excluding reproductive structures, and we collected leaf samples for specific leaf area (SLA; cm² g^-1) and leaf dry matter content (LDMC) (following Pérez-Harguindeguy et al. 2016). To minimize dehydration, collected leaves were sealed in plastic bags with damp paper towels, and stored in a cooler until processing within 1–2 hrs. Fresh leaf samples with petioles removed were then scanned on a LI-3000A leaf area meter (LI-COR Biosciences, Lincoln, NE), weighed, oven-dried at 60 °C to constant mass, and then reweighed. # Plant functional traits from an early successional grassland community at KBS LTER Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.47d7wm3vk](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.47d7wm3vk) ## Description of the data and file structure In July 2024, we sampled functional traits of 31 plant species in the KBS LTER Main Cropping System Experiment (MCSE) early successional (T7) plots in Hickory Corners, MI, USA. Traits were measured from a minimum of 3 randomly selected individuals per species, and if possible, we sampled one individual per species per T7 replicate to account for spatial environmental variation (i.e., n = 3–6 individuals/species). For each plant, we measured height (cm) as the distance from ground to top of foliage, excluding reproductive structures, and we collected leaf samples for specific leaf area (SLA; cm^2^ g^-1^) and leaf dry matter content (LDMC) (following Pérez-Harguindeguy et al. 2016). To minimize dehydration, collected leaves were sealed in plastic bags with damp paper towels, and stored in a cooler until processing within 1–2 hrs. Fresh leaf samples with petioles removed were then scanned on a LI-3000A leaf area meter (LI-COR Biosciences, Lincoln, NE), weighed, oven-dried at 60 °C to constant mass, and then reweighed. ### Files and variables #### File: KBS_LTER_T7_plant_traits.xlsx **Description:**  ##### Variables * Treatment: Treatment in KBS LTER Main Cropping System Experiment (MCSE)  * Rep: Treatment replicate (R1-R6) * Species: Species name * Latin: Species' full Latin name * Height: plant height (cm) from ground to top of foliage, excluding reproductive structures * Leaf_area_1: leaf area (cm^2^), first measurement  * Leaf_area_2: leaf area (cm^2^), second measurement  * Mass_fresh: leaf fresh mass (g)  * Mass_dried: leaf oven-dried (60 °C to constant mass) mass (g) * SLA: specific leaf area (cm^2^ g^-1^); calculated as average leaf area (i.e., mean of Leaf_area_1 and Leaf_area_2) divided by leaf dried mass * LDMC: leaf dry matter content (g / g); calculated as leaf dried mass divided by leaf fresh mass ## Code/software We used R Studio Version 2024.12.0+467 and R version 4.4.2 (2024-10-31). We used the fundiversity package to calculate functional richness (fd_fric) and functional evenness (fd_feve) from these plant functional trait data.  ## Access information Other publicly accessible locations of the data: * NA Data was derived from the following sources: * NA 

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4. Water Chemistry in Streams, Lakes Wetlands and Groundwater near the KBS LTER at the Kellogg Biological Station, Hickory Corners, MI (1996 to 2017)

   https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/7d6bf23de4606e7a9794be6638b5736c  

   Hamilton, Stephen (January 2018, Environmental Data Initiative)

   Dataset Abstract Water chemistry is measured in diverse surface waters and in two water supply wells in the vicinity of the KBS LTER. This dataset includes sites sampled over time (streams, wells, some wetlands) as well as wetland sites sampled once or a few times. A separate dataset includes soil water chemistry sampled from the LTER treatments. original data source http://lter.kbs.msu.edu/datasets/50 

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5. Insect Population Dynamics on the Main Cropping System Experiment at the Kellogg Biological Station, Hickory Corners, MI (1989 to 2019)

   https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/f0776c1574808b08c484c1f7645a7357  

   Landis, Douglas (January 2020, Environmental Data Initiative)

   Dataset Abstract Plant dwelling insect occurrence in the LTER main site (all treatments) of the KBS-LTER has been recorded since 1989 and in the successional and forest sites since 1993. The effort has focused on characterizing the temporal and spatial abundance and diversity of a set of insects representative of a higher order insect trophic level, the herbivore predators. The insect database contains more than 400,000 records and consists of counts of adult insects of fourteen species of Coccinellidae, one species of Chrysopidae, and one species of Lampyridae from 30 sample sites in each of the seven treatments in the LTER Main Site. The standard method used to measure these organisms is a yellow sticky trap. Sampling is conducted weekly during the growing season as described in the sampling protocol. original data source http://lter.kbs.msu.edu/datasets/26 

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