Our research interests... focus on the interactions between the environment and ecosystems (natural, restored and agroecosystems). We study these interactions at many levels of organization including cellular, organismal, ecosystem and global scales. Our research projects investigate how climate change affects plant and ecosystem functioning and how the observed effects feedback on the Earth's biogeochemical processes. Specifically, we concentrate on how cellular, plant and ecosystem respiration processes affect the global carbon cycle in an array of different experimental set ups using stable isotopes. Our projects taken together investigate many disciplines including plant physiology and biochemistry, ecosystem ecology, restoration ecology, biogeochemistry, water quality, or paleoecology/climate reconstruction.

We now have a new focus for the inclusion of market-based strategies for ecological restoration of grasslands and wetlands that arebased on ecosystem services related to cope and mitigate the effects of land use and climate change. We use stable isotopes to integrate all these disciplines and all levels of organization.

Publication highlights:

Flower CE, Knight K, Gonzalez-Meler MA (2012) Changes in Carbon content and forest community composition in response to ash-induced mortality by the invasive emerald ash borer. Biological Invasions, DOI 10.1007/s10530-012-0341-7.

Lynch DJ, McInerney FA, Kouwenberg LLR, Gonzalez-Meler MA (2012) Plasticity in bundle sheath extensions of heterobaric leaves of woody plants. American Journal of Botany 99: 1197-1206.

Gomez-Casanovas N, Matamala R, Cook DR, Gonzalez-Meler MA (2012) Time scale dependencies between the variations in net ecosystem exchange and the autotrophic and heterotrophic components of soil respiration in prairie grasslands. Global Change Biology 18: 2532-2545.

Taneva L and Gonzalez-Meler MA (2011) Distinct patterns in the diurnal and seasonal variability in four components of soil respiration in a temperate forest under free-air CO2 enrichment. Biogeosciences 8: 3077-3092. doi:10.5194/bg-8-3077.

O'Brien, SL, Jastrow JD, McFarlane KJ, Guilderson TP, Gonzalez-Meler MA (2011) Stable mineral-associated soil organic matter pools revealed by combined physical and chemical fractionation. Biogeochemistry. doi:10.1007/s10533-011-9673-0.