Integrative Coastal Wetland Ecology
The Integrative Coastal Wetland Ecology is the general framework how my lab study coastal wetland ecosystems that include, but are not limited to, salt marshes and mangroves. Briefly,
In coastal wetland ecology, we examine plant growth and productivity, community assembly/succession, food webs, and ecosystem functioning, and we also do wetland conservation and restoration. The old coastal wetland ecology primarily studies how these aspects are controlled by physical factors, such as nutrients and salinity, at individual sites. The Integrative Coastal Wetland Ecology first recognizes the importance of consumer top-down control in coastal wetlands and incorporates consumer control to expand current understanding of ecological processes in coastal wetlands. Second, the Integrative Coastal Wetland Ecology considers that physical control and consumer control often interact in different ways (synergistically, additively, or antagonistically) and that under global change, human impacts are changing how coastal wetlands are controlled by physical factors, consumers, and their interactions. Finally, the Integrative Coastal Wetland Ecology emphasizes scaling up findings at site scales to regional and global scales by integrating biogeography.
Relevant Publications
He, Q., Silliman, B. R., Liu, Z., & Cui, B. 2017. Natural enemies govern ecosystem resilience in the face of extreme droughts. Ecology Letters 20: 194–201.
He, Q., & Silliman, B. R. 2016. Consumer control as a common driver of coastal vegetation worldwide. Ecological Monographs 86: 278–294
He, Q., & Silliman, B. R. 2015. Biogeographic consequences of nutrient enrichment for plant–herbivore interactions in coastal wetlands. Ecology Letters 18: 462–471.
He, Q., Altieri, A.H., & Cui, B. 2015. Herbivory drives zonation of stress-tolerant marsh plants. Ecology 96: 1318–1328.
Fariña, J. M., He, Q., Silliman, B. R., & Bertness, M.D. 2016. Bottom-up and top-down human impacts interact to affect a protected coastal Chilean marsh. Ecology 97: 640–648.