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Peatlands/muskeg - low productivity wetlands that store loads-o-carbon because everything is stagnant & nothing happens including decomposition... Nope! We discovered a cryptic multi-trophic food web in an Alaskan fen that regulates carbon cycling. Peat soil predators! 1/
Setting of this discovery: a fen where we've maintained drought & flooding treatments for two decades! I started this experiment as a postdoc w/ @USGS; it's now supported by @NSF & @BNZ_LTER. Here are photos of our plots (~800m2) w/ boardwalk & floodplain. 2/
Characters: two @michiganstateu PhD students (now Drs. Kevin Wyatt & Allison Rober) who changed the way I see wetlands. They wanted to study algae in northern fens.... I wasn't convinced, until they reached into the peat & showed me. Now I see algae EVERYWHERE. 3/
Drs. Wyatt & Rober created elegant experiments in the fen to explore algae as the base of a food web. They discovered herbivores feeding on algae, & predators feeding on those herbivores. These critters may be wee, but they regulate C fluxes. Zoogeochemical cycling! 4/
Published this week by @Ecology_Letters, we challenge the long-standing notion that energy flow in northern peatlands is restricted by detrital pathways. There is more going on in that peat layer than we ever imagined.... 5/ https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.13697
Peatlands as models for carbon cycling - 
Peatlands as models for ecological theory -
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Most peatland biomass is not eaten by herbivores, but algae create a distinct/fast energy channel. @mccannlab has shown that this stabilizes ecosystems. 6/ https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04887
Peatlands as models for ecological theory -
!!!!Most peatland biomass is not eaten by herbivores, but algae create a distinct/fast energy channel. @mccannlab has shown that this stabilizes ecosystems. 6/ https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04887
2nd ecological theory: 50 yrs ago, scientists proposed the world was green because plants indirectly receive a boost from predators limiting herbivores. Trophic cascades exemplify "an enemy of my enemy is my friend". We now can state that they influence peatlands! 7/
I am a better person & scholar because of this research. Key lessons: 1) Interacting with students who teach me is pure magic. 2) Once you see a new pattern, your world view will change forever. 3) Convergence is hard but worth it. 4) Love a wetland, it's good karma. 
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