Does fire influence root and microbes in forest systems?
Wildfires alter soil microbes and biogeochemistry by changing soil properties and driving vegetation loss, with impacts extending meters deep in seasonally arid landscapes where roots and microbes interact with carbon stocks. Stand-replacing fires, expected to increase under climate change, may disrupt these deep systems as tree mortality cuts off or shifts carbon inputs. This project examines how fire-driven tree loss affects soil microbial function and carbon cycling in Sierra Nevada pine-oak forests, using deep soil and root sampling coupled with metagenomics. By linking microbial traits with ecosystem modeling, the work builds a predictive framework connecting shifts in fire regimes to soil carbon dynamics and climate feedback.
Funded by NSF and in collaboration with the Dr. Boger UCD lab. This project just started so stay tuned!
Does wildfire impact nutrient and metal movement through the soil and stream?
This research investigates how wildfires redistribute carbon and trace elements from deep soils to streams, altering ecosystem and water quality dynamics. Studies of the 2021 Caldor Fire in the Sierra Nevada showed that severe burns mobilize deep soil carbon and trace elements, reshaping soil and stream chemistry. By combining measurements of soil organic carbon, meteoric 10Be, and uranium isotopes, the work provides a new framework for tracing post-fire material movement through landscapes. Future efforts aim to track pyrogenic carbon and isotope dynamics to better understand soil and water responses to wildfire.
Funded by Department of Energy and Stanford
Multifaceted Pathways to Climate-Smart Agriculture
California’s agricultural economy faces climate-induced water scarcity, extreme weather events, and regulatory challenges under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). Through research and extension-based education, we provided tools (CalAgroClimate) and resources to farmers, technical service providers, and students. This work includes farmer, rancher, and technical service provider assessments, training, research, and a UC Merced Summer course.
Funded by National Foundation for Food and Agriculture and UC ANR
Can degraded meadows become carbon sinks again?
Wet meadows support biodiversity, store high soil carbon densities, and regulate water supplies critical for agriculture and fish. We assessed hydrological changes and carbon persistence across undisturbed, degraded, and restored meadows to determine how restoration changed the water and soil dynamics. This work will inform strategies for climate adaptation and sustainable water management.
Funded by 5th California Climate Assessment, CA Tahoe Conservancy, Sierra Meadows Partnership, and Point Blue
Stay tuned for the climate assessment results.
National Resource Conservation Service Climate Literacy
The USDA California Climate Hub has joined forces with the NRCS to help their staff learn about how to have conversations with producers about climate change and conservation practices that mitigation climate.
Funded by NRCS and USDA under Inflation Reduction Act funds.
How do soil amendments impact the soil microbial life?
We are looking at how rock dust being spread on farm land impacts the soil life. Rock dust is being used on soils in order to sequester CO2 from the air because the rock interacts with the CO2 in the air to form carbonate and draws down the carbon. This could be a promising solution to help mitigate climate. It also has other co-benefits like it can be used as a lime alternative and may reduce excess nitrous oxide emissions.
Funded by Department of Energy and work with Terradot, LLC
Can Indigenous burning practices increase soil health?
We have been learning from the Karuk tribe about their burning practices. We hope to help them bring fire back on the land after the suppression era by showing how beneficial these practices are to soil carbon and wildfire reduction.
Funded by Department of Energy
Why is the average soil sampling depth 23 cm?
We are exploring why the average soil sampling depth since 2000 in the top four soil journals is 23 cm. Please help us in understanding why this may be and what prevents us from studying deeper soils by taking this five-minute survey. We intend to publish the results of this in a perspective paper in anticipation of deepening the discussion within our community about why we are mostly sampling topsoils as well as the barriers that prevent us from going deeper.
Stay tuned for publication.
Deep Soil Warming Experiment
Deep soils store more than 70% of global SOC, and increased SOC decomposition and CO2 emissions caused by warming are potentially large climate change feedbacks. However, uncertainty remains in our process-level understanding and ability to quantify how projected warming will impact the stability of deep soils. In order to answer these questions we are collecting soils from different types of parent material (rock types) and doing an incubation in the lab mimicking a warming of 4 degrees. We are going from the topsoil to bedrock and will estimate soil carbon stock, persistence, and characterize the mineralogy.
Funded by Department of Energy
Deep Critical Zone Biogeochemistry
An entire team of critical zone scientists are working to understand how essential nutrients such as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycle from the top of the trees through soil and down into bedrock. How carbon cycles through the critical zone, specifically deep soil carbon is my main project. Soils stores two times the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and vegetation combined making it an important carbon storage pool. The ability to store lots of carbon for long periods of time caused soils to gain global attention in the climate change conversation.
Funded by NSF
Links to Project Info and Papers:
Soil Organic Matter in the Critical Zone
Deep in the Sierra Nevada critical zone: saprock represents a large terrestrial organic carbon stock
Climatic controls on soil and saprock nitrogen distribution and persistence in the Sierra Nevada
Depth dependence of climatic controls on soil microbial community activity and composition