Jeffrey S Fehmi

Interests

No activities entered.

Courses

Scholarly Contributions

Journals/Publications

• More info

  Invasive plants threaten global ecosystems, yet traditional analyses of functional traits cannot fully explain their dominance over co-occurring natives. Metabolomics offers insights into plant invasions, but single-technique studies often miss critical biochemical mechanisms. We employ a multimodal metabolomics approach (¹H NMR, LC MS/MS, FT-ICR-MS, and MALDI-MSI) to investigate the biochemical basis of Lehmann lovegrass (Eragrostis lehmanniana) invasion in semi-arid North America, comparing it with a co-occurring native grass, Arizona cottontop (Digitaria californica). Our analysis reveals three metabolomic traits of Lehmann lovegrass compared to Arizona cottontop: Enhanced nitrogen allocation in shoots, reduced defensive metabolites in root layers; and increased root exudate modulation under stress conditions. These traits suggest Lehmann lovegrass succeeds through adaptation to increasing aridity rather than direct competition, demonstrating adaptation to nutrient-poor environments and high phenotypic plasticity in response to increasing aridity. This integrated metabolomic approach provides new mechanistic insights into invasion ecology and plant adaptation under environmental change.

Proceedings Publications

• More info

  Abstract : The US Department of Defense (DOD) is the nation?s fifth-largest Federal land management agency. The DOD employs several pro-grams to assess the impacts of military training on Army installation lands. These programs must in turn meet the Army?s environmen-tal technology requirements. One Army User Requirement for Land Characterization calls for the development of methods applicable for use at the installation level that characterize suitability of lands for mission use, the impact of vehicle activity on installation re-sources, and the spatial distribution of maneuver training impacts. To support this effort, this work collected, summarized, and ana-lyzed existing military training impact studies (including the topical and geographic foci of each publication). To extrapolate the ap-plicability of conducted research to other, similar geographical areas, the publications were categorized by their relevance to five biomes, which are associated with military installations in specific US states. This way, the resulting research compilation offers a base to evaluate future impacts of military activities on installation lands, and to recommend the implementation of a more cost-effective, regional strategic approach for future land conservation research.

Presentations

Poster Presentations

Others