Waring Ecology Lab
Plant, microbial, and ecosystem ecology
Lab News
January 4 2019
Congratulations to Jessica, who just received two grants to support her research on Costa Rican canopy soils - a Sigma Xi Grant-in-aid of Research and an Organization for Tropical Studies Research Fellowship. Felicidades!
January 1 2019
The lab welcomes Guopeng Liang, a PhD student interested in climatic controls on soil carbon cycling in drylands.
September 20 2018
Kenny's first post-doc paper, examining climatic and edaphic controls on dryland soil carbon stocks, is published in Ecosystems. Congratulations Kenny!
August 2018
Interested in joining the Waring lab? I am recruiting a PhD student to start in Fall 2019. Learn more about our work at ESA (and check out our organized oral session on mechanisms of soil organic matter formation)! Contact me at [email protected] to set up a meeting.
June 2018
The Waring Lab field season is in full swing: Karen and Bonnie just returned from Alaska to start an incubation experiment with high-latitude wetland soils. Meanwhile, Jess is wrapping up her canopy soils surveys in Monteverde and preparing to visit the Barva Transect near La Selva Biological Station. Check out the photos from both sites below!
May 10-13 2018
The Waring lab hosted a technical tree climbing course for canopy researchers, taught by expert arborist Tyler Zuniga, ahead of Jessica's first field season studying canopy soils in Costa Rica.
April 16 2018
The Waring lab welcomes Karen Foley, a new Master's student who will be working on carbon-climate feedbacks in high-latitude wetlands. We are also excited to have undergraduate researchers Zach Anthony and Lizzy Lasley on board for fieldwork this summer. Welcome everyone!
February 26 2018
The Waring lab spent the weekend in Moab, UT, sampling soils from the USGS long-term ecosystem warming experiment. Of course, we also found time to do some hiking and see some of the amazing petroglyphs in the area. Check out the lab photos in the gallery below! (All the nice ones were taken by Kenny.)
November 10 2017
Colin Averill and I have published a new framework for understanding how nitrogen deposition affects ecosystem carbon storage. Check it out here!
August 15 2017
A big welcome to Jessica Murray, who is joining the Waring lab as a PhD student!
May 30 2017
How do historical climate conditions shape soil microbes' contemporary responses to environmental variation? The Hawkes lab used multiple experimental approaches to address this question, and our results have just been published in PNAS.
January 12 2017
The Waring lab has grown! Post-doc researcher Kenny Smith has joined the lab to work on a project involving microbial controls on soil organic matter formation. We also have two new undergraduate researchers, Julienne Henrie and Preston Christensen. Welcome everyone!
November 21 2016
Our new review of belowground biomass allocation in tropical forests has been published in Forest Ecology and Management.
October 24 2016
Our new paper on the microbial mechanisms underlying the Birch effect is out at Environmental Research Letters! Check it out here.
August 9 2016
I spoke at the 2016 Ecological Society of America conference about my research on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi along gradients of nutrient availability. A paper related to this work was recently published here.
August 1 2016
I have started my position at Utah State! I am recruiting graduate students, undergraduate students, and post-docs. Contact me at [email protected] for more information.
Research
In order to mitigate the effects of global climate change on the environment, we need a predictive understanding of the ecological interactions that drive biogeochemical processes. To that end, we study how plant and soil microbial communities mediate carbon cycling in a diverse array of terrestrial ecosystems .
The role of soil microbes in the stabilization and cycling of soil carbon
Soil is one of the most chemically complex substances on earth, and represents the largest terrestrial carbon pool. One of our major objectives is to understand how microbial physiology and community structure influence the formation and turnover of soil C along broad environmental gradients.
Tropical forest responses to climate change
Tropical forests exchange more carbon with the atmosphere than any other biome, and are experiencing rapid changes in climate and land use. We use a combination of observational and manipulative experiments to understand how the composition and function of these forests will change under future climates.
Plant-mycorrhizal interactions
Mycorrhizal fungi are ubiquitous root symbionts that play a major role in plant nutrient acquisition and influence the cycling of soil carbon. Our goal is to understand how soil nutrient stoichiometry influences the ecological relationship between plant and fungus in both arbuscular and ectomycorrhizal systems.
People
Bonnie Waring
Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, Utah State University
Jessica Murray
Graduate Student
Karen Foley
Graduate Student
Guopeng Liang
Graduate Student
Lab Alumni
Publications
Open data policy: Whenever possible, the Waring lab ensures that our raw data is freely and publicly available. Links to Dryad data repositories (https://datadryad.org) are provided alongside the relevant publications.
2018
2016
Waring BG, Powers JS. 2016. Unravelling the mechanisms underlying pulse dynamics of soil respiration in tropical dry forests. Environmental Research Letters 11(10): 105005 (https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2hd320d)
2015
2014
2013
2012
†Student mentee co-author
Where we work
The Waring lab travels all over the world to study the soil carbon cycle and its feedbacks to global change. Our current projects span the tundra to the tropics... check out our site photos below!
Kenny is conducting experiments within an ecosystem warming experiment (established by our collaborators Sasha Reed, Colin Tucker, and others at the USGS Southwest Biological Science Center) near Moab, UT
Karen Foley is examining controls on greenhouse gas production by soil microbes in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, AK
A view from one of Jess's study trees in Monteverde, Costa Rica, where she is examining carbon cycling in canopy soils
Waring Lab press
Join the Lab!
Graduate Students
The Waring Lab is looking for new graduate students to begin in the fall semester of 2018! Feel free to contact me via email to hear more about this opportunity; please include a current CV. More information on how to apply can be found here: http://www.biology.usu.edu/education/graduate-program/prospective_students.
Undergraduates
I am always looking for enthusiastic undergraduate students who are interested in learning more about biogeochemistry and ecosystem ecology! Research in the Waring lab involves a combination of lab work and fieldwork, so there are plenty of opportunities to get involved in projects that match your interests and skills.
Utah State has one of the oldest undergraduate research programs in the nation. You may contact me directly to learn about current opportunities in the Waring lab.