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Introduction
Mitchell Pavao-Zuckerman currently works at the Department of Environmental Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park. Mitchell does research in Urban Ecosystem Ecology. His group works with approaches from biogeochemistry, ecohydrology, and social-ecological systems to assess the function, effectiveness, and application of green infrastructure, nature based solutions, and novel urban ecosystems. Their most recent publication is 'Identifying the key catastrophic variables of urban social-environmental resilience and early warning signal'.
Publications
Publications (78)
Carbon sinks in mangrove soils play a critical role in climate change mitigation globally. Soil dissolved organic matter (DOM) is a major form of labile organic matter and influences carbon cycling in wetland ecosystems. However, the factors regulating DOM pools in mangrove soils on a regional scale are not well understood. Here, we used a novel ap...
Mangrove ecosystems play a critical role in supporting ecological service values and regulating the global carbon cycle. They have become one of the most highly vulnerable ecosystems in the Anthropocene under the long-term influence of diverse human perturbations. Soil dissolved organic matter (DOM) is an active fraction within the carbon cycle in...
Urban areas are increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Stormwater Green infrastructure (SWGI) is seen as an approach to increase the climate resilience of urban areas, because they can buffer precipitation changes brought on by climate change. However, SWGI features themselves need to be resilient to climate change to be able to...
Stormwater management has recently begun a paradigm shift away from traditional top-down approaches in response to climatic changes, urbanization, and regulatory pressures. This paradigm shift is characterized by two key developments: the implementation of additional decentralized green infrastructure, and the practice of individuals managing storm...
Effective management of cities using ecosystem services from green infrastructure (GI) requires explicit consideration of the linkages between provision of services and ecosystem service demands (i.e., governance priorities). Identification of stakeholder knowledge and objectives in GI decision-making contexts with respect to ecosystem services may...
A paradigm shift process has begun in stormwater governance and management in the United States, away from centralized infrastructure and toward more decentralized practices. This transition is prompted by heightened climate change, increased urbanization, and an intense call for change in regulatory measures. Within this shift, two key and related...
Effective management of cities using ecosystem services from green infrastructure (GI) requires explicit consideration of the linkages between provision of services and ecosystem service demands (i.e., governance priorities). Identification of stakeholder knowledge and objectives in GI decision-making contexts with respect to ecosystem services may...
Biological soil crusts (BSC) are important contributors to nutrient cycling in arid environments such as the Sonoran Desert. BSC at an urban (University Indian Ruins) and at a non-urban site (Santa Rita Experimental Range) were compared to determine if their structure or function was influenced by proximity to an urban environment. The Step Point m...
Forum papers are thought-provoking opinion pieces or essays founded in fact, sometimes containing speculation, on a civil engineering topic of general interest and relevance to the readership of the journal. The views expressed in this Forum article do not necessarily reflect the views of ASCE or the Editorial Board of the journal.
The hydrological functioning of urban trees can reduce stormwater runoff, mitigate the risk of flood, and improve water quality in developed areas. Tree canopies intercept rainfall and return water to the atmosphere through transpiration, while roots increase infiltration and storage in the soil. Despite this, the amount of stormwater that trees re...
While the concept of green infrastructure (GI) is increasingly popular, definitions, terminology, and goals differ based on geographic and disciplinary context. This paper examines these differences through a three-part systematic review: 1) content analysis of academic GI review publications, 2) bibliometric review of academic publications focusin...
Context
Coastal zones are a significant coupling landscape and seascape with large global populations and thus have large concentrations of carbon emissions and potential influences on global environmental changes. However, the impacts of coastal seascape pattern change, on the provision of ecosystem goods and services (e.g. carbon flows) have not...
Green Infrastructure (GI) is being adopted in cities all around the world as a key piece of climate change adaptation and water management for local governments. Recognizing that there is increasingly a diversity of actors engaged in designing, implementing, and fostering GI policies, we aim to better understand how urban GI policies take shape ove...
Transition from historic grasslands to woody plants in semiarid regions has led to questions about impacts in soil functioning, where microorganisms play a primary role. Understanding the relationship between microbes, plant diversity and soil functioning, is relevant to assess such impacts. We evaluate the effect that plant type change in semiarid...
Context Coastal zones are a significant coupling landscape and seascape with large global populations and thus have large concentrations of carbon emissions and potential influences on global environmental changes. However, the impacts of coastal seascape
pattern change, on the provision of ecosystem goods and services (e.g. carbon flows) have not...
Water management and governance continues to rely on the scientific and engineering principles of the hydrologic cycle for decision-making on policies and infrastructure choices. This over-reliance on hydrologic-based, technocratic, command-and-control management and governance tends to discount and overlook the political, social, cultural, and eco...
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.
Ecosystem carbon flux partitioning is strongly influenced by poorly constrained soil CO2 efflux (Fsoil). Simple model applications (Arrhenius and Q10) do not account for observed diel hysteresis between Fsoil and soil temperature. How this hysteresis emerges and how it will respond to variation in vegetation or soil moisture remains unknown. We use...
Ecosystem carbon flux partitioning is strongly influenced by poorly constrained soil CO 2 efflux (F soil). Simple model applications (Arrhenius and Q 10) do not account for observed diel hysteresis between F soil and soil temperature. How this hysteresis emerges and how it will respond to variation in vegetation or soil moisture remains unknown. We...
Forest patches in developed landscapes perform ecohydrological functions that can reduce urban stormwater flows. However, urban forest patch contributions to runoff mitigation are not well understood due to a lack of performance data. In this study, we focus on the potential of urban forest patch soils to infiltrate rainfall by characterizing rates...
The vulnerabilities of our food, energy and water systems to projected climatic change make building resilience in renewable energy and food production a fundamental challenge. We investigate a novel approach to solve this problem by creating a hybrid of colocated agriculture and solar photovoltaic (PV) infrastructure. We take an integrative approa...
According to the fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report, the urban environment is responsible for between 71% and 76% of carbon emissions from global final energy use and between 67% and 76% of global energy use. Two important and trending domains in urban environment are “resilience” and “net zero” associated with...
Urbanization affects ecosystem function and environmental quality through shifts in ecosystem fluxes that are brought on by features of the built environment. Green infrastructure (GI) has been suggested as a best management practice (BMP) to address urban hydrologic and ecological impacts of the built environment, but GI practice has only been stu...
While photovoltaic (PV) renewable energy production has surged, concerns remain about whether or not PV power plants induce a “heat island” (PVHI) effect, much like the increase in ambient temperatures relative to wildlands generates an Urban Heat Island effect in cities. Transitions to PV plants alter the way that incoming energy is reflected back...
Water, Energy, and Society in Urban Systems III (https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm15/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/74301)
Jane Jacobs (1961) closes her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities with a reflection on what type of question a city poses. Her response is one that indicates that cities are complex systems, analogous to biological systems, requiring a set of perspectives and approaches appropriate for the type of question. The development of the field...
Socio-hydrology focuses on studying the dynamics and co-evolution of coupled human and water systems. Recently, several new socio-hydrologic models have been published that explore these dynamics, and these models offer unique opportunities to better understand these coupled systems and to understand how water problems evolve similarly in different...
Urban ecology has quickly become established as a central part of ecological thinking. As cities continue to grow in size and number, two questions serve to unify this broad and multidisciplinary research landscape: (1) how can urban ecology contribute to the science of ecology, and (2) how can urban ecology be applied to make cities more livable a...
Soil microbial respiration pulses in response to episodic rainfall pulses (the “Birch effect”) are poorly understood. We developed and assessed five evolving microbial-enzyme models against field measurements from a semiarid savannah characterized by pulsed precipitation to understand the mechanisms to generate the Birch pulses. The five models evo...
The integration of research into the design process is an opportunity to build ecologically informed urban design solutions. To date, designers have traditionally relied on environmental consultants to provide the best available science; however, serious gaps in our understanding of urban ecosystems remain. To evaluate ecosystem processes and servi...
Background / Purpose:
Can we use trait-based approaches to predict changes in ecosystem processes in an arid riparian corridor? Should we consider environmental impacts at intraspecific, interspecific, or land-cover type level?
Main conclusion:
Regional species means may be ideal for predicting trait effects on ecosystems. Traits do seem to be...
Background/Question/Methods
With the use of landscape planning and ecological design, the urban environment can be manipulated to enhance ecosystem services. Many approaches to ecological design of green infrastructure originated in mesic environments, leaving questions about their ability to function as desired when transferred to semi-arid envi...
Cities emerge from a dynamic interaction between local and global scale processes. We can manipulate these processes by recognizing our roles as urban ecosystem engineers to help cities transition to more sustainable and resilient forms. What roles can ecological design and soil stewardship play in this transition to more sustainable forms of urban...
On-going human population growth and changing patterns of resource consumption are increasing global demand for ecosystem services, many of which are provided by soils. Some of these ecosystem services are linearly related to the surface area of pervious soil, whereas others show non-linear relationships, making ecosystem service optimization a com...
Green leaf volatiles (GLVs) are a diverse group of fatty acid-derived compounds emitted by all plants and are involved in a wide variety of developmental and stress-related biological functions. Recently, GLV emission bursts from leaves were reported following light-dark transitions and hypothesized to be related to the stress response while acetal...
A greater abundance of shrubs in semiarid grasslands affects the spatial patterns of soil temperature, moisture, and litter, resulting in fertile islands with potentially enhanced soil metabolic activity. The goal of this study was to quantify the microsite specificity of soil respiration in a semiarid riparian ecosystem experiencing shrub encroach...
Woody plant encroachment into grasslands, such as in the southwestern
US, is thought to have altered regional carbon fluxes due to the
differences in structure and function between grasses and woody plants.
It is unknown how climate change predictions for such areas,
particularly warmer temperatures and fewer but larger precipitation
events, might...
Urbanization has increased anthropogenic non-point sourcing of inorganic
nitrogen (N). Elevated inorganic N inputs can alter stream channel
biogeochemistry and degrade the quality of downstream waters,
particularly in N-limited regions such as the semi-arid southwest.
However, it is unclear how N cycling in ephemeral urban waterways
respond to epis...
Roof tops can cover one-fifth of urban areas and can greatly alter the
movement of matter and energy in cities. With traditional roofing
methods and materials, roof tops readily absorb heat and as a result,
buildings and the surrounding urban area heat to unnaturally high
temperatures. It is hypothesized that extensive green roofs would have
wide-r...
Urbanization is arguably one of the most dramatic forms of landscape
change, and an important anthropogenic influence on the structure and
function of ecosystems. Cities have obvious impacts on local ecologies
and environments, such as shifts in species diversity and alteration of
local microclimates. While scientists are now familiar with many of...
Background/Question/Methods
In arid ecosystems, the lack of rainfall limits soil microbial activity and in turn nutrient cycling. Soil microclimate and organic content are principal factors in determining rates of in situ N turnover. N-mineralization is the transformation of organic forms of N into mineral forms that can be taken up by plants and...
Background/Question/Methods
As rates of urbanization continue to rise and a greater proportion of the population lives in urban and suburban areas, the provision of ecological services becomes increasingly important to for the sustainability and resilience of cities. Soils play a primary role in the healthy functioning of ecosystems that provide...
The heat island effect has one of the greatest impacts on the biogeochemistry of urban microclimates. As cities grow hotter from climate change and increased energy consumption, the effect on urban ecosystem function will likely intensify. One strategy for ameliorating local elevated temperatures is to use green design to alter energy balances and...
As rates of urbanization continue to rise and a greater proportion of the population lives in urban and suburban areas, the provision of ecological services and functions become increasingly important to sustain human and environmental health in urban ecosystems. Soils play a primary role in the healthy functioning of ecosystems that provide suppor...
Background/Question/Methods
One of the key ways that local decision making intersects with global change processes is the modification of microclimates through the urban heat island effect in cities. One strategy for ameliorating local elevated temperatures is to use green design to alter energy balances and reduce energy demands for cooling. Des...
Background/Question/Methods
Predictions of the future dynamics of temperate savannah ecosystems require an improved understanding of their responses to simultaneous environmental changes. For example, in the southwestern U.S., savannahs are subject to both the invasion of non-native grass species and altered precipitation regimes due to climate ch...
Background/Question/Methods Environmental understanding, decision making, and management are increasingly important as humans influence ecosystems and the Earth system. Education and outreach programs are often aimed at promoting ecological understanding; however many overlook opportunities that allow the public to confront ecological uncertainty a...
Belowground processes and associated plant–microbial interactions play a critical role in how ecosystems respond to environmental change.
However, the mechanisms and factors controlling processes such as soil carbon turnover can be difficult to quantify due to methodological or logistical constraints. Soil incubation experiments have the potential...
Introduction: By 2007 more than half of the world's population is expected to reside in cities (United Nations, 2004). As urban populations and the number of cities expand, natural and agricultural lands are transformed into highly altered landscapes. These changes in demography and land use have contributed to the alteration of biogeochemical cycl...
Current and predicted trends indicate that an increasing proportion of the world’s population is living in urban and suburban places. The nature of the urban environment becomes an important factor if we are concerned with the restoration and preservation of biodiversity and ecosystems in and around cities. This article highlights the varied impact...
Earth system and ecological sustainability problems are complex outcomes of biological, physical, social, and economic interactions. A common goal of outreach and education programs is to foster a scientifically literate community that possesses the knowledge to contribute to environmental policies and decision making. Uncertainty and variability t...
The variability in the type of ecosystem degradation and the specificity of restoration goals can challenge restorationists' ability to generalize about approaches that lead to restoration success. The discipline of soil ecology, which emphasizes both soil organisms and ecosystem processes, has generated a body of knowledge that can be generally us...
Background/Question/Methods
Environmental and ecological problems are complex outcomes of biological, physical, social, and economic interactions that complicate and add uncertainty to environmental understanding, decision making and management. A goal of outreach and education programs is often to foster an ecologically literate community that p...
Background/Question/Methods
The pressure to streamline curriculum at research universities has made it more and more difficult to provide undergraduate students in ecology with hands-on training of modern environmental instrumentation. The reduction in the number of laboratory sections offered throughout the curriculum puts exposure to these tool...
The recent focus on urban ecosystems and urban ecology has had a well-documented impact on the field of ecology but a less clear impact on how people learn about urban ecosystems. We propose a workshop to identify and document key concepts that college and university students should learn about urban ecosystems and the best practices for teaching t...
We evaluated the response of riparian forest soil nematode community structure to the physico-chemical environment associated with urban land use. Soils were sampled seasonally between December 2000 and October 2002 along an urban—rural transect in Asheville, North Carolina. We characterized the taxonomic (to genus) and functional composition (trop...
Spatial distributions of trophic interactions define the spatial heterogeneity of food webs and differences between local and macroecological food webs. The concept of co-occurrence has to be given up when larger spatial scales are considered that integrate different local community food webs into a metacommunity food web. This chapter provides two...
Despite the importance of soil carbon cycling to the response of water-limited ecosystems to global change, our understanding of this ecosystem component is still in its infancy. Adding to the complexity in knowledge building, ecosystems are exposed to simultaneous multiple shifts within global change scenarios. For example, semiarid grasslands in...
We studied soil processes along an urban to rural gradient. To determine the ecosystem response to the urban soil environment, we measured (1) leaf litter decomposition rates using a reference leaf litter, and (2) net N-mineralization and net nitrification rates using paired in situ soil cores. A significant trend toward slower litter decomposition...
While plant canopies are important controllers over water and carbon fluxes between the biosphere and atmosphere, in water limited ecosystems soils have important direct and indirect effects on ecosystem fluxes. Using whole-ecosystem assessments of water and carbon exchanges in large plots exposed to different precipitation regimes, we have attempt...
"This paper explores some of the remarkable properties that set human ecosystems apart from nonhuman ecosystems. The identification of these properties provides a framework for bridging the theoretical and methodological divide between biological ecology and human ecology. The unique information-processing capability of humans in ecosystems is cent...
"To better understand and manage complex social-ecological systems, social scientists and ecologists must collaborate. However, issues related to language and research approaches can make it hard for researchers in different fields to work together. This paper suggests that researchers can improve interdisciplinary science through the use of concep...
The urban gradient paradigm was used to investigate the influence of the urban environment on soils in Asheville, NC. A transect of forested plots was established from Asheville, NC to the Pisgah National Forest. The objectives of this study were to: (1) characterize the nature of the urban to rural land use gradient,(2) determine the response of s...
Anthropology and bioecology are currently at a point in their development where researchers in both fields are working towards an integration, which can be described as a form of human ecology. Integration of such disparate disciplines is not easily achieved. Important steps which facilitate integration are the clear definition of terms relevant to...
Methane (CH4) is produced by fermentation in the rumen of cattle. Methane may play a part in global warming scenarios. Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) is an important forage in the eastern United States. The toxic syndrome associated with the endophytic fungus Neotyphodlum coenophialum (E+) can be mitigated with management strategies that...