Microbial Ecology Laboratory
Human activities are altering global carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycles at an unprecedented rate. It is unclear how significant changes in global elemental cycles will affect ecosystem functions, such as primary productivity or C storage over the long-term. My research aims to understand how plant-microbe interactions mediate ecosystem-specific responses to global climate change. This research connects microbial processes to ecosystem functions to yield new insights into microbial ecology and elemental c
This research aims to reveal the microbial mechanisms that regulate carbon (C) stabilization in soils dedicated to biofuel crops, and test identified mechanisms in ecosystem-scale field experiments. Emerging evidence suggests that dead microbial biomass, or necromass, constitutes a significant fraction of soil organic matter. Although microbial necromass stabilization is frequently invoked as a mechanisms for long-term soil C storage, there remains limited empirical data illustrating the complement of molec