Pollution scenarios and anthropogenic warming are familiar examples of human-caused stress on the environment. But human-driven loss of biodiversity itself robs ecosystems of essential players and services, damaging ecosystem function. Ecoss research examined the effects of various environmental stressors on plant growth and decomposition, two crucial processes in any ecosystem. Read more…
Rising global temperatures and CO2 levels are increasing the amount of global-warming methane (the flaming red molecule depicted here) produced by rice farming: with more CO2 in the air to pull in for photosynthesis, rice plants grow faster and supply soil microbes with more sugars seeped from their roots. In Read more…
Researchers at Ecoss helped to uncover a potent offset to carbon “drawdown” by plants: with more CO2 available to fuel photosynthesis in the air above, soil microbes consume more sugars oozing from the roots of the faster-growing plants and increase their own greenhouse-gas emissions during respiration. These emissions offset the Read more…
Albedo, the reflectance of sunlight from earth’s surface, is an important moderator of climate because it determines whether solar energy is locally absorbed or re-radiated to space. Ecoss-associated research characterized the albedo and other energy fluxes of various landscapes to demonstrate that human land-use decisions can alter surface energy fluxes Read more…
We study antibiotic resistance in human pathogens, genetic sampling of meat for antibiotic resistance, methods to develop a molecular database for strains of E. coli in urinary tract infections, and food safety of kosher vs non-kosher chicken.
As part of a large interdisciplinary team, with funding from the National Science Foundation, we have studied how genetic and environmental factors affect leaf litter quality in cottonwoods and other riparian species, and how these effects are manifest in aquatic ecosystems.