Research in the Waring Lab
All research in the Waring Lab is aimed at improving our understanding of the terrestrial carbon cycle and its feedbacks to global change. Under this umbrella, our work is concentrated in three major areas.
Climate change mitigation through reforestation and enhanced rock weathering
Funding: The Carbon Community, Eurofins Foundation, Grantham Foundation, NERC
Nearly half of the organic carbon on land is held in forests, which are also important reservoirs of terrestrial biodiversity. How can we best protect, manage, and plant forests to enhance carbon capture from the atmosphere?
The Waring Lab is also exploring how to 'layer' multiple carbon dioxide removal strategies in the same ecosystem, combining reforestation and enhanced rock weathering. We are particularly interested in how rock weathering impacts carbon uptake and release by plants and soils.
Image: lysimeters at our field site in Wales, where we extract soil pore water to assess rock weathering rates.
Controls on carbon stabilization in soils
Funding: U.S. Department of Energy, Didling Estate
Soils contain more carbon than all terrestrial plants and the atmosphere combined. Some of this carbon can be retained belowground for centuries. We investigate controls on the formation of persistent, long-lived soil carbon, most recently using an innovative 'artificial soil' approach in the lab. We also explore how the composition of decomposer microbial communities affects carbon exchange between soils and the atmosphere.
Image: artificial soils developed from customised blends of minerals and organic matter.
Manipulating soil microbiomes to enhance ecological restoration and agricultural outcomes
Funding: The Michael Uren Foundation
Plant function depends upon an enormously complex community of bacteria, and fungi and viruses that live in soil. Yet when managing ecosystems to capture carbon or to produce crops, we frequently ignore the soil microbiome, which has often experienced a significant degree of disruption due to land use change or agricultural practice. We are exploring ways to optimise soil microbiomes in multiple environmental settings, accelerating ecological restoration and sustainably intensifying crop production.
Image: young trees growing at Glandwr forest in Wales, which have been inoculated with microbiomes from nearby mature forests.
Lab photos
