Undergraduate Student Work
Work/Availability
Open Access Undergraduate Student Work
Type of Work
Poster Presentation
Keywords
Carbon cycle (Biogeochemistry); Prairie plants; Plant species diversity;
Abstract
Backgroud
- Global climate change largely depends on the atmospheric carbon balance, of which soil respiration is a significant component.
- Native perennial prairie vegetation is being tested as an alternative to corn for renewable biofuel production.
- Mixtures of this vegetation are considered ‘carbon negative’ because net CO2 sequestration exceeds atmospheric release1.
- Studies have shown that aboveground biomass and the rate of carbon sequestration are both increased by planting a diverse mixture of species versus a monoculture1.
Research Question:
How does the diversity of biofuel vegetation mixtures affect soil respiration, aboveground biomass and belowground biomass?
Date of Work
2015
Department
Department of Biology
Department
Tallgrass Prairie Center
First Advisor
Kenneth Elgersma
Repository
UNI ScholarWorks, Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa
Copyright
©2015 Jordan Young, Jessica Abernathy, and Kenneth Elgersma
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Young, Jordan; Abernathy, Jessica; and Elgersma, Kenneth, "Above- and belowground biomass and soil respiration in a low-input perennial biofuel production system" (2015). Undergraduate Student Work. 24.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ugswork/24