Kirsten Deane-Coe

• PhD
• Professor at St. Mary's College of Maryland

Fluctuations in mean annual precipitation (MAP) will strongly influence the ecology of dryland ecosystems in the future, yet, because individual precipitation events drive growth and resource availability for many dryland organisms, changes in intra-annual precipitation may disproportionately influence future dryland processes. This work examines t...

Soil biocrusts are assemblages of cyanobacteria, lichens, and mosses ubiquitous to arid and semi-arid (dryland) systems that offer an array of ecosystem services. Soil crust mosses are taxonomically diverse, account for up to 30 % of crust cover, and offer large contributions to crust biogeochemical functionality, yet remain the least understood co...

As a biologist in the natural sciences, one of the most important aspects of my own education and training was the ability to spend course time outdoors: it allowed me to engage directly with the material I was learning and develop a strong understanding of the patterns and processes shaping natural systems. Now, as a post-secondary educator, I hav...

Arid and semi-arid ecosystems cover similar to 40% of Earth's terrestrial surface(1), but we know little about how climate change will affect these widespread landscapes. Like many drylands, the Colorado Plateau in southwestern United States is predicted to experience elevated temperatures and alterations to the timing and amount of annual precipit...

Precipitation patterns including the magnitude, timing, and seasonality of rainfall are predicted to undergo substantial alterations in arid regions in the future, and desert organisms may be more responsive to such changes than to shifts in only mean annual rainfall. Soil biocrust communities (consisting of cyanobacteria, lichen, and mosses) are u...

To thrive in extreme conditions, organisms have evolved a diverse arsenal of adaptations that confer resilience. These species, their traits, and the mechanisms underlying them comprise a valuable resource that can be mined for numerous conceptual insights and applied objectives. One of the most dramatic adaptations to water limitation is desiccati...

Premise Poikilohydric plants respond to hydration by undergoing dry–wet–dry cycles. Carbon balance represents the net gain or loss of carbon from each cycle. Here we present the first standard protocol for measuring carbon balance, including a custom‐modified chamber system for infrared gas analysis, 12‐h continuous monitoring, resolution of plant–...

Bryophytes, including the lineages of mosses, liverworts, and hornworts, are the second‐largest photoautotroph group on Earth. Recent work across terrestrial ecosystems has highlighted how bryophytes retain and control water, fix substantial amounts of carbon (C), and contribute to nitrogen (N) cycles in forests (boreal, temperate, and tropical), t...

Functional traits are critical tools in plant ecology for capturing organism–environment interactions based on trade‐offs and making links between organismal and ecosystem processes. While broad frameworks for functional traits have been developed for vascular plants, we lack the same for bryophytes, despite an escalation in the number of studies o...

The effects of severe drought on the stability of dryland ecosystems are still uncertain and it is unknown whether diversity can buffer changes in systems that are adapted to water-limitation. We investigated the effects of long-term induced drought on the composition and maturity of biological soil crusts (biocrusts), as well as tested the hypothe...

Climate change is expanding drylands even as land use practices degrade them. Representing ∼40% of Earth’s terrestrial surface, drylands rely on biological soil crusts (biocrusts) for key ecosystem functions including soil stability, biogeochemical cycling, and water capture. Understanding how biocrusts adapt to climate change is critical to unders...

Biodiversity describes the variety of life and may influence properties and processes of ecosystems, such as biomass production and resistance to disturbance. We investigated the effects of multiple facets of biodiversity – species richness and composition of the community, and intraspecific diversity in two key species – on both production and res...

With global climate change, water scarcity threatens whole agro/ecosystems. The desert moss Syntrichia caninervis, an extremophile, offers novel insights into surviving desiccation and heat. The sequenced S. caninervis genome consists of 13 chromosomes containing 16 545 protein‐coding genes and 2666 unplaced scaffolds. Syntenic relationships within...

Premise: Desiccation tolerance (DT) is a widespread phenomenon among land plants, and variable ecological strategies for DT are likely to exist. Using Syntrichia caninervis, a dryland moss and model system used in DT studies, we hypothesized that DT is lowest in juvenile (protonemal) tissues, highest in asexual reproductive propagules (gemmae), an...

Plant functional trait analyses have focused almost exclusively on vascular plants, but bryophytes comprise ancient and diverse plant lineages that have widespread global distributions and important ecological functions in terrestrial ecosystems. We examined a diverse clade of dryland mosses, Syntrichia, and studied carbon balance during a precipit...

In an undergraduate introductory biology laboratory course, we used a summative assessment to directly test the learning objective that students will be able to apply course material to increasingly novel and complex situations. Using a factorial framework, we developed multiple true–false questions to fall along axes of novelty and complexity, whi...

The diversity and functional roles of biocrust bryophytes in different terrestrial habitats are described in this chapter. At present, over 320 species of biocrust bryophytes have been described, many of which belong to the families Pottiaceae and Bryaceae. Bryophytes possess a suite of physiological and morphological traits that enable them to col...

Bryophytes have an important biogeochemical role in many forest ecosystems, where they regulate soil temperature and moisture and influence carbon and nitrogen (N) cycling. Associations between bryophytes and N2-fixing cyanobacteria have been reported in northern latitude forests and are shown to provide a substantial N input to these ecosystems, b...

In the tundra, mosses play an important functional role regulating belowground and ecosystem processes, but there is still considerable uncertainty about how tundra moss communities will respond to climate change. We examined the effects of 5 years of in situ air and soil warming on net primary productivity (NPP), carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) isotop...

Background/Question/Methods The C4 grass Zea mays (maize or corn) is the third most important food crop globally in terms of production. Breeding of maize over the last 400 years has selected for traits of agronomic value, one of which is suppression of the shade avoidance response (SAR) to maximize productivity in dense plantings. A yet unanswer...

Background/Question/Methods Climate change is predicted to have significant effects on dryland ecosystems, yet our understanding and predictive capacity regarding climate change affects on biological soil crusts (biocrusts) remains notably poor. Due to the global extent of biocrust communities and to their substantial role in regulating ecosystem...

Background/Question/Methods Deserts are likely to experience some of the most dramatic and unpredictable shifts in precipitation patterns over the next century, yet we still know very little about how vegetation in these systems will respond physiologically and ecologically to such changes. In particular, changes in intra-annual precipitation par...

In arid regions, biomes particularly responsive to climate change, mosses play an important biogeochemical role as key components of biocrusts. Using the biocrust moss Syntrichia caninervis collected from the Nevada Desert Free Air CO₂ Enrichment Facility, we examined the physiological effects of 10 years of exposure to elevated CO₂, and the effect...

Background/Question/Methods Climate change projections for aridlands include alterations in the magnitude and frequency of rainfall. Plants found in these environments are often living at their physiological limits of tolerance, and water availability exerts prime control on physiological functioning, thus such changes are likely to drive future...

Background/Question/Methods Climate models offer an array of predictions for changes in global hydrology that include alterations in the magnitude and timing of precipitation. Arid systems will be particularly responsive to these changes because water exerts considerable control on the physiological functioning of organisms in this biome. In the...

Background/Question/Methods Climate change in the form of increased temperature, elevated CO2, and changes in global hydrology is likely to have global ecological ramifications. Arid and semi arid regions are though to be particularly sensitive to these changes because they are comprised of highly adapted species that are often operating at their...