9602466 Elser This award supports U.S.-Japan collaborative research between Dr. James Elser of the Department of Zoology at Arizona State University and Dr. Jotaro Urabe of the Center for Ecological Research at Kyoto University. Dr. Elser will be spending four months at Kyoto University in order to develop a new perspective on ecological dynamics, ecological stoichiometry. Ecological stoichiometry focuses on the relative elemental composition of participants in ecological interactions in ecosystems. Research in this area has recently been applied in novel ways to a variety of ecological phenomena in pelagic ecosystems, such as effects of food-web structure on N and P availability in lakes, links between consumer-driven N:P recycling and particulate N:P and consumer N:P, stoichiometric constraints on animal growth and production, contrasts between marine and freshwater ecosystems, and the evolutionary ecology and cell biology of body elemental composition. Focus will be placed on techniques and conceptual/theoretical frameworks for study of the ecological stoichiometry of pelagic ecosystems. The visit will build on the model that research cooperation rather than competition yields synergistic benefits that serve to advance understanding at an accelerated rate. The U.S. researcher brings to this collaboration his knowledge on large-scale field settings, including whole- lake experimentation and patterns across large geochemical and hydrodynamic gradients. This is complemented by expertise in the area of laboratory plankton culture and physiological studies of growth by the Japanese researcher. The project is expected to produce internationally comparable data suitable for interpreting how stoichiometric processes regulate ecosystem function across the world's lakes. This data will have direct application to areas of domestic and international concern including fisheries decline, eutrophication, loss of biodiversity and global climate change.
