Professor of Ecosystem Ecology

Whendee Silver

Research Areas: greenhouse gas emissions; terrestrial biogeochemistry
URL: http://ecnr.berkeley.edu/facPage/dispFP.php

My research interests are in the field of ecosystem ecology, and include biogeochemical cycling in the plant-soil-atmosphere interfaces, the effects of disturbance on nutrient cycling, and the relationships among nutrient cycling, land-use, and biodiversity. My lab group works on themes linking climate, plant community characteristics, and biogeochemical cycling in tropical forests, as well as the effects of changing cover types at local and regional scales. Some of the mechanisms we use to study the relationships between climate and ecosystems are to determine the impact of spatial and temporal variability in rainfall, temperature, and relative humidity on plant productivity, ecosystem nutrient dynamics, and soil C, nutrient, and gas fluxes. A second focus of our research concerns the effects of natural and human induced disturbances on forest ecosystems, and the impacts of different rehabilitation or reforestation strategies on biogeochemical cycling. We are interested in determining how long the biogeochemical signal of disturbance events persists, and how species composition alters long term patterns in the flow of carbon and nutrients through ecosystems.