Hofmockel.org

Following is a list of sites I have constructed to support communities of environmental scientists.

LTSE - Long-Term Soil-Ecosystem studies - http://ltse.env.duke.edu
We aim to expand observations and synthesis of global soil change by promoting long-term soil-ecosystem studies (LTSEs) and space-for-time substitution studies (SFTSs). This global inventory is real-time and growing! We seek individual scientists, managers, & students, but also institutions & the general public to help build this inventory and network.

Dan Richter, Mike Hofmockel, Mac Callaham, David Powlson, & Pete Smith
Duke Univ, USDA Forest Service, Rothamsted Research, & Univ Aberdeen

CZEN - Critical Zone Exploration Network - http://www.czen.org

At Earth’s surface, a complex suite of chemical, biological, and physical processes combines to produce soil from bedrock and sediments within the zone that extends from the outer limits of vegetation to the lower limits of groundwater. This weathering engine transforms primary minerals, provides nutrients to nourish ecosystems and human society, mediates the transport of toxic components within the biosphere, creates water flow paths that shape and weaken bedrock, and contributes to the evolution of landscapes at all temporal and spatial scales. At the longest time scales, the weathering engine sequesters CO2, thereby influencing the global carbon cycle, long-term climate change, and weathering rates.

Calhoun - The Calhoun Long-Term Soil-Ecosystem study - http://calhoun.env.duke.edu

Long-term soil-ecosystem experiments (LTSEs) demonstrate how and why soil and ecosystems (Earth's Critical Zone) are changing on time scales of decades.

The Calhoun LTSE in the Southern Carolina Piedmont USA, was initiated in 1957 in old cotton fields by US Forest Service scientists, Drs. LJ Metz and CG Wells. The 16 Metz-Wells plots have been resampled with similar methods and nearly all samples have been archived on eight occasions (1962, 1968, 1972, 1977, 1982, 1990, 1997, & 2005).

The Calhoun study demonstrates like few others how major ecosystem processes and properties change over decades of ecosystem development. At the Calhoun, contemporary ecosystem dynamics are seen not only to be controlled by on-going management, but by historic land uses (the legacies of cotton cultivation between 1800 and 1955) and multi-millennial evolution of the natural ecosystem.

In May 2007, half of the 16 permanent plots were clear-cut and are being regenerated with pine seedlings, all to better examine human impacts on temporal and spatial changes in soils and ecosystems. The Calhoun Experimental Forest has become a globally-significant experiment not only of human effects on ecosystems, but of natural recovery processes as well.

Calhoun researchers invite collaborations with other scientists, land managers and users, teachers, writers, and students.

Dan Richter, Mac Callaham

Duke University & USDA Forest Service

SCSF - Southern Center for Sustainable Forests - http://scsf.env.duke.edu

The Southern Center for Sustainable Forests provides innovative research and practical applications for enhancing sustainable forest management on industrial and nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) land in the South. The Center provides an umbrella for research activities ranging from sustainable production of wood fiber to extensive management of nonindustrial private forest land to the broad management of forested landscapes for non-market values.

The Southern Center is a cooperative organization with three institutions:

North Carolina State University, Department of Forestry

Duke University, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences

North Carolina's Division of Forest Resources

Dr. Don Zak's Lab University of Michigan - http://sitemaker.umich.edu/drzak

Our research investigates microbial transformations of carbon and nitrogen within soil and the significance of microbial communities in regulating ecosystem-level processes. This work integrates microbial ecology and plant physiology, and it is focused at several scales of understanding ranging from microbial functional genes to biogeochemical processes. Plants respond to environmental factors by altering the growth and longevity of fine roots, which, in part, control the amount and types of organic substrates available for microbial metabolism in soil. We use molecular techniques and stable isotopes to understand how changes in belowground plant growth influence the composition and function of soil microbial communities. Our research has elucidated mechanisms of plant-microbe competition for inorganic nitrogen and the interdependence of plant and microbial productivity in a wide range of terrestrial ecosystems. Much of our current work centers on understanding the link between plant and microbial activity within terrestrial ecosystems, and the influence climate change may have on these dynamics.

Foufopoulos Lab: Disease Ecology and Conservation Biology - http://sitemaker.umich.edu/jfoufop

We investigate the ecology of parasitism and disease in vertebrates by studying the ecological, physiological and evolutionary aspects of host-parasite interactions. To do so, we employ an integrative approach with methodologies borrowed from field ecology, comparative physiology, ecological immunology, evolutionary biology and population genetics.

Human activities and their influence on natural ecosystems constitute a pervasive backdrop against which many ecological processes occur. We study how habitat fragmentation, global climate change and emerging pathogens impact global biodiversity and ecosystem function.