WEBSITE Degrees
B.S., University of Exeter, UK
Ph.D., University of Exeter and Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, UK.
About
I am primarily interested in how global change (e.g. climate warming) affects plants, animals and microorganisms in grasslands and forests, and what the consequences are for ecosystem carbon cycling and storage.
To understand how global change affects the organisms and carbon stores, my lab group uses field experiments, field observation, and laboratory studies. We primarily work across ecosystems in the north and south of the eastern United States.
Current projects include testing whether soils lose carbon as temperatures increase, accelerating climate warming; delineating the niche requirements of understory herbs, to predict how they and overall forest diversity will respond to environmental change; whether loss of tree species will affect the ecosystem services forests provide; and whether different microbial communities affect how much carbon is stored and nutrients made available for plant growth.
The overall goal of our research is to provide the necessary mechanistic understanding required for reliable prediction of global change impacts on ecosystems, and their likely feedbacks to the climate system.
