[Microbialecologygroup] Dr. Sharon Billings seminar on Wed 4/13 @3pm

[Peter Homyak]

 *Speaker:* Dr. Sharon A. Billings, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary
Biology, Kansas Biological Survey & Center for Ecological Research,
University of Kansas
*Time/Location:* Wednesday, April 13, 2022 @3:00 PM - 3:50 PM, MSE 103

You're invited!

*Title: *Humans as unintentional sculptors of subsoil form and function in
the Anthropocene

*Abstract:* Soil feedbacks to climate are a known knowledge gap important
to fill for accurate projections of Earth’s future climate. Most research
focuses on perhaps the most intuitive feedback: the mineralization of soil
organic carbon (SOC) to CO₂. In this talk I will outline the ways in which
that approach, though valuable, must be expanded for a more complete
appreciation of soil-climate feedbacks. First, I will draw on datasets
representing a diversity of spatial scales to demonstrate that roots and
the microbes that proliferate around them influence soil structure, and
that soil feedbacks to climate likely can arise from these changes. Second,
I will demonstrate some of the biogeochemical effects that these structural
changes can prompt. Some of these effects hint that SOC formation and
transformations can undergo unexpected modifications with changes in
climate and land use deep beneath the surface, and highlight the folly of
assuming that all CO₂ derived from SOC mineralization diffuses up to the
aboveground atmosphere. By unintentionally altering biotic activity deep
within soil profiles, humans are changing the ways in which soils govern
and respond to climate.

Peter M. Homyak, Ph.D. (he/him)

Assistant Professor of

Ecosystem and Soil Microbial Processes

Associate Editor: Elementa <https://www.elementascience.org/>

Dept. of Environmental Sciences

University of California, Riverside

900 University Ave

Riverside, CA 92521

Phomyak at ucr.edu

(951) 827-2358 | 312 Sci Lab I

http://petehomyak.weebly.com
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