Soil Lab - People
Michael F. Allen
Director of the Center for Conservation Biology, Professor of Plant Pathology and Biology
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Educational Background: Ph.D. Botany, University of Wyoming, 1980 M.S. Botany, University of Wyoming, 1977 B.S. Biology, Southwestern College, KS, 1974 Professional Interests: The ecology of microbial-plant-soil interactions. My interests focus on the regulation of community and ecosystem processes by soil organisms with special emphasis on mycorrhizal fungi. My current research concentrates on global change dynamics and structure of undisturbed areas, and how that information can be utilized in the conservation and restoration of native ecosystems. |
Niles Hasselquist
Ph.D. Researcher
| My research focuses on the interactions among soil processes (namely mycorrhizal associations), plant physiology, and ecosystem processes. I am primarily interested in examining the movement of carbon, water, and nitrogen through ecosystems as well as the potential feedbacks between mycorrhizal fungi and ecosystem processes. |
Kuni Kitajima
Staff Research Associate
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I'm in charge of coordinating lab activities, maintaining equipment and organizing field data for easy access to researchers. My research interests include soil ecology, functional and physiological mycology, and ecological modeling. |
Laurel Salzman
Ph.D. Researcher
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I am broadly interested in ecosystem conservation and restoration. Based in the Yucatan Peninsula, I wish to better understand how tropical ecosystems recover after anthropogenic disturbances. Epiphytes, a specialized group of organisms occupying a niche in the canopy, are considered to be especially sensitive to such disturbances. My research is currently focused on determining those factors that are critical for epiphyte establishment. Which mechanisms govern epiphyte return to previously disturbed tropical areas? |
Hector Estrada Medina
Graduate Student in Environmental Sciences
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I am interested in the study of water dynamics in the semitropical karstic environment of the Yucatan Peninsula. I want to focus my researching thesis Dissertation on building a water balance model and quantifying the magnitude of the fluxes of the different components (atmosphere, soil, rock, biota and ground water). Specific subcomponents will be studied in detail to find out their roll on the water dynamics (i.e., within the biota component: water uptake differences according with vegetation strata, water holding plant strategies, and importance of the Mycorrhiza). |