Project Title: Role
of Microbial Ecology in Global Carbon and Nitrogen Cycling
Mendenhall Fellow: Mark P. Waldrop,
(650) 329-5005, mwaldrop@usgs.gov
Duty Station: Menlo Park, CA
Start Date: January 5, 2005
Education: Ph.D. (Soil Science), University
of California at Berkeley, 2002
Research Advisors: Jennifer Harden,
(650) 329-4949, jharden@usgs.gov;
Laurence Miller, (650) 329-4475, lgmiller@usgs.gov;
Carol Kendall, (650) 329-4576, ckendall@usgs.gov
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Project Description: Boreal forest ecosystems
are being impacted by a variety of factors that affect ecosystem structure
and function. Climate change is a major driving force behind changes in fire
regimes, plant community distributions, potential terrestrialization, and
permafrost melt. Although the significance of these different phenomenon for
ecosystem biogeochemical cycling are known, or are at least being examined
at a broad scale, the mechanisms that drive ecosystem response to them are
not well understood. Understanding ecosystem biogeochemical response to global
climate change requires an explicit consideration of the linkages between
the aboveground and belowground (e.g. fungal and bacterial) biotic communities.
This is because climate change affects the composition and function of microbial
communities indirectly through alterations in disturbance regimes, plant community
composition, hydrology, and other factors. Alterations in the composition
and function of soil microbial communities, in turn, affect the biogeochemical
cycling of elements, resulting in positive and negative feedbacks to aboveground
biota and trace gas fluxes. My research is particularly focused on understanding
the potential of microbial communities to access recalcitrant permafrost carbon
and black carbon in relation to landscapes, succession, and global change.
URL: http://geology.usgs.gov/postdoc/profiles/waldrop/index.html
Direct inquiries to Rama K. Kotra at rkotra@usgs.gov
Page Contact Information: Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellowship Program Web Team
Last modified: 16:08:33 Thu 13 Dec 2012
