Dr. Ravi Ranjan 

Abstract of workshop

Due to anthropogenic activities, global temperatures have risen sharply and nitrogen and

phosphorus levels have changed dramatically in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Changing

temperature and nutrients can drastically alter the growth rates of plants and algae which

sequester carbon and produce almost all of Earth’s oxygen. While temperature and nutrients

do act independently on plant and algae, they also interact strongly to determine their growth

rates. The independent impacts of both temperature and nutrients on growth are non-linear.

Therefore, their interaction is complex and integrating them has been difficult.

A useful way to reduce complexity is to focus on the environmental conditions of the plant

and algal community. Environmental conditions (e.g., high or low nutrient levels, pulses of

high temperatures or nutrients) can determine the strength of the interaction between

temperature and nutrients. In our workshop, we will focus on isolating environmental

conditions which result in strong temperature-nutrient interactions. We will develop

mathematical models of plant and algal communities and analyze them to understand which

conditions cause the interaction to have the strongest effect. We will further validate model

predictions by analyzing existing datasets to see if the predicted conditions result in large

changes in real communities. Once finished, the project will guide future research by directing

it to focus on the predicted environmental conditions.