Lauren C Breza

University of New Hampshire | UNH · Department of Natural Resources & the Environment

When plants colonize new habitats altered by natural or anthropogenic disturbances, those individuals may encounter biotic and abiotic conditions novel to the species, which can cause plant functional trait divergence. Over time, site-driven adaptation can give rise to population-level genetic variation, with consequences for plant community dynami...

AimsIn this study, we examine two common invasion biology hypotheses - biotic resistance and fluctuating resource availability - to explain the patterns of invasion of an invasive grass, Microstegium vimineum.Methods We used 13-year-old deer exclosures in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, USA, to examine how chronic disturbance by deer browsing...

Linking intraspecific variation in plant traits to ecosystem carbon uptake may allow us to better predict how shift in populations shape ecosystem function. We investigated whether plant populations of a dominant old-field plant species (Solidago altissima) differed in carbon dynamics and if variation in plant traits among genotypes and between pop...