Prairie dogs were once abundant across the plains and grasslands of the Western half of the United States. Four of the five subspecies are found in the United States and have lost 98% of their historical abundance since 1870 due to extermination campaigns, habitat loss, and plague. This species is threatened by extinction and already extirpated across most of its range and yet given very little federal or state protection, except for the Utah prairie dog. This leaves most conservation efforts to grassroots and non-profit conservation organizations. This paper looks at the framework used by conservation organizations within conservation campaigns to communicate the need for prairie dog conservation efforts. Thirty-six organizations were found and six frames were identified. The most common frames emphasized prairie dogs’ role as a keystone species and addressed concerns surrounding cattle ranching and prairie dogs and plague transmission. Other frames were used occasionally and showcase underutilization of a wider variety of targeted frames. This paper is the first of its kind to analyze how prairie dog conservation is being communicated through framing theory. This field is under-researched and has the potential to grow and be helpful to future campaigns as they develop communication strategies and create partnerships with other like-minded organizations.

Aboveground-belowground relationships between vegetation and its associated soil biotic community play an important role in every terrestrial ecosystem for nutrient cycling and soil health maintenance. Deserts are especially sensitive to change and little is known about Sonoran Desert soil microbiota, while exotic herbaceous species are increasingly invading into the ecosystem with other harmful effects. In many other environments, soil communities have been associated with both plant species and plant functional type. The soil community food web depends on the sustenance brought by vegetation, and different soil community members are adapted to different diets. In this paper, we hypothesized that invasive plants would cause belowground soil communities to have greater abundance and lesser diversity than those under native, more locally established plants. To test this hypothesis, we selected four desert understory plant taxa: one native grass, one native forb, one invasive grass, and one invasive forb. We predicted that the invasive plants would be associated with a greater count of microarthropods per unit mass of soil but lesser microarthropod species diversity. The invasive plants were not statistically associated with a greater count of microarthropods per kilogram of soil nor lesser microarthropod species diversity. There was not a significant difference in abundance in the microarthropod categories between native and invasive plants, so the hypothesis was rejected. However, the invasive Erodium cicutarium was found to harbor high soil mite abundance, which warrants further study, and it is yet to be seen whether soil moisture and proximity to trees played a role in the data. The results of this study should help in generating more informed hypotheses regarding desert aboveground-belowground relationships.

As part of Arizona State University’s net-zero carbon initiative, 1000 mesquite trees were planted on a vacant plot of land at West Campus to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. Urban forestry is typically a method of carbon capture in temperate areas, but it is hypothesized that the same principle can be employed in arid regions as well. To test this hypothesis a carbon model was constructed using the pools and fluxes measured at the Carbon sink and learning forest at West Campus. As an ideal, another carbon model was constructed for the mature mesquite forest at the Hassayampa River Preserve to project how the carbon cycle at West Campus could change over time as the forest matures. The results indicate that the West Campus plot currently functions as a carbon source while the site at the Hassayampa river preserve currently functions as a carbon sink. Soil composition at both sites differ with inorganic carbon contributing to the largest percentage at West Campus, and organic carbon at Hassayampa. Predictive modeling using biomass accumulation estimates and photosynthesis rates for the Carbon Sink Forest at West Campus both predict approximately 290 metric tons of carbon sequestration after 30 years. Modeling net ecosystem exchange predicts that the West Campus plot will begin to act as a carbon sink after 33 years.

Multitrophic communities that maintain the functionality of the extreme Antarctic terrestrial ecosystems, while the simplest of any natural community, are still challenging our knowledge about the limits to life on earth. In this study, we describe and interpret the linkage between the diversity of different trophic level communities to the geological morphology and soil geochemistry in the remote Transantarctic Mountains (Darwin Mountains, 80°S). We examined the distribution and diversity of biota (bacteria, cyanobacteria, lichens, algae, invertebrates) with respect to elevation, age of glacial drift sheets, and soil physicochemistry. Results showed an abiotic spatial gradient with respect to the diversity of the organisms across different trophic levels. More complex communities, in terms of trophic level diversity, were related to the weakly developed younger drifts (Hatherton and Britannia) with higher soil C/N ratio and lower total soluble salts content (thus lower conductivity). Our results indicate that an increase of ion concentration from younger to older drift regions drives a succession of complex to more simple communities, in terms of number of trophic levels and diversity within each group of organisms analysed. This study revealed that integrating diversity across multi-trophic levels of biotic communities with abiotic spatial heterogeneity and geological history is fundamental to understand environmental constraints influencing biological distribution in Antarctic soil ecosystems.