Consumer Return Chronology Alters Recovery Trajectory of Stream Ecosystem Structure and Function Following Drought

Consumers are increasingly being recognized as important drivers of ecological succession, yet it is still hard to predict the nature and direction of consumer effects in nonequilibrium environments. We used stream consumer exclosures and large outdoor mesocosms to study the impact of macroconsumers (i.e., fish and crayfish) on recovery of intermittent prairie streams after drying. In the stream, macroconsumers altered system recovery trajectory by decreasing algal and macroinvertebrate biomass, primary productivity, and benthic nutrient uptake rates. However, macroconsumer influence was transient, and differences between exclosures and controls disappeared after 35 days. Introducing and removing macroconsumers after 28 days resulted mainly in changes to macroinvertebrates. In mesocosms, a dominant consumer (the grazing minnow Phoxinus erythrogaster) reduced macroinvertebrate biomass but had little effect on algal assemblage structure and ecosystem rates during recovery. The weak effect of P. erythrogaster in mesocosms, in contrast to the strong consumer effect in the natural stream, suggests that both timing and diversity of returning consumers are important to their overall influence on stream recovery patterns. Although we found that consumers significantly altered ecosystem structure and function in a system experiencing rapid changes in abiotic and biotic factors following disturbance, consumer effects diminished over time and trajectories converged to similar states with respect to primary producers, in spite of differences in consumer colonization history. Thus, consumer impacts can be substantial in recovering ecosystems and are likely to be dependent on the disturbance regime and diversity of the consumer community

Evolutionary Dynamics While Trapped in Resonance: A Keplerian Binary System Perturbed by Gravitational Radiation

The method of averaging is used to investigate the phenomenon of capture into resonance for a model that describes a Keplerian binary system influenced by radiation damping and external normally incident periodic gravitational radiation. The dynamical evolution of the binary orbit while trapped in resonance is elucidated using the second order partially averaged system. This method provides a theoretical framework that can be used to explain the main evolutionary dynamics of a physical system that has been trapped in resonance.Comment: REVTEX Style, Submitte

Probing Photochemically and Thermally Induced Isomerization Reactions in α-Pyrone

The isomerization dynamics of α-pyrone dissolved in CH₃CN have been probed by femtosecond 267 nm pump/broadband infrared (IR) probe spectroscopy. A novel experimental setup allowed the populations of the parent molecule and ring-opened photoproducts to be monitored over pump/probe time delays ranging between 2 ps and 100 μs within a single experiment, and at 5 different temperatures between 0 and 40 °C. The photochemically prepared α-pyrone­(S₁) molecules decay rapidly (<10 ps) through internal conversion to the S₀ potential energy surface, with an initial quantum yield for parent molecule re-formation of ∼60%. Probing the antisymmetric ketene stretch region (2100–2150 cm^–1) confirms the presence of at least two ring-opened photoproducts, which are assumed to have an <i>E</i>-configuration with respect to the central CC double bond. These ketenes are observed to undergo two distinct, thermally driven, isomerization processes which occur on the nanosecond and microsecond time scales, respectively. The former reaction is ascribed to thermalization of the initially prepared <i>E-</i>isomer populations, while the slower (microsecond) process involves rotation around the central CC double bond leading to formation of <i>Z</i>-isomers. Subsequent rapid <i>Z</i> → <i>Z</i> isomerizations (occurring on a nanosecond time scale) result in ring-closure and a second, longer time recovery of parent molecule population. By determining rates as a function of the sample temperature, barrier heights of 0.23(3) eV and 0.43(2) eV are obtained for the <i>E</i> → <i>E</i> and <i>E</i> → <i>Z</i> transformations, respectively

Molecular photofragmentation dynamics in the gas and condensed phases

Exciting a molecule with an ultraviolet photon often leads to bond fission, but the final outcome of the bond cleavage is typically both molecule and phase dependent. The photodissociation of an isolated gas-phase molecule can be viewed as a closed system: Energy and momentum are conserved, and the fragmentation is irreversible. The same is not true in a solution-phase photodissociation process. Solvent interactions may dissipate some of the photoexcitation energy prior to bond fission and will dissipate any excess energy partitioned into the dissociation products. Products that have no analog in the corresponding gas-phase study may arise by, for example, geminate recombination. Here, we illustrate the extent to which dynamical insights from gas-phase studies can inform our understanding of the corresponding solution-phase photochemistry and how, in the specific case of photoinduced ring-opening reactions, solution-phase studies can in some cases reveal dynamical insights more clearly than the corresponding gas-phase study. </jats:p

Breakdown of Conformal Invariance at Strongly Random Critical Points

We consider the breakdown of conformal and scale invariance in random systems with strongly random critical points. Extending previous results on one-dimensional systems, we provide an example of a three-dimensional system which has a strongly random critical point. The average correlation functions of this system demonstrate a breakdown of conformal invariance, while the typical correlation functions demonstrate a breakdown of scale invariance. The breakdown of conformal invariance is due to the vanishing of the correlation functions at the infinite disorder fixed point, causing the critical correlation functions to be controlled by a dangerously irrelevant operator describing the approach to the fixed point. We relate the computation of average correlation functions to a problem of persistence in the RG flow.Comment: 9 page