Christine Goodale
Cornell University, NY·Ecology & Evolution
Trees need nitrogen and phosphorus to grow, and in many temperate forests of North America and Europe these nutrients have become scarcer relative to what plants demand. This slow decline is called oligotrophication.
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Earth & Environmental Science
Plant Science & Agriculture
- Topics
forest biogeochemistry
oligotrophication
nitrogen limitation
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2029
What they work on
- Use long-term data from four Hubbard Brook monitoring sites to quantify how tree carbon allocation above and below ground has changed with shifts in soil nitrogen and phosphorus and their uptake by plants.
- Test whether trees facing nutrient decline gain more phosphorus than nitrogen from soil, using stable isotope tracers at fourteen sites along an elevation gradient in northern hardwood forest.
- Identify which soil microbes actively mobilize nutrients using isotope probing of microbial communities, linking microbial activity to plant nitrogen and phosphorus acquisition.
- Build AI-assisted process-based models of belowground carbon allocation and nutrient uptake to project whether forest growth eventually outstrips soil nutrient supply.
More about the research
It raises a basic question about forest health: when soil nutrients run short, can trees compensate, and for how long?
Why it matters
Declining nitrogen and phosphorus could reduce the long-term growth of northeastern U.S. forests. By testing whether and for how long trees can compensate by investing carbon belowground, this work could improve forecasts of forest health and productivity. That information matters for the forest-based economy, including partners in the New Hampshire Forest Economy Alliance, and for public outreach materials aimed at local communities and schools.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Elizabeth LaRue
University of Texas at El Paso, TX·Ecology & Evolution
Test whether higher tree species richness increases belowground biodiversity and thereby promotes complementary use of water and nutrients, using North America's longest-running large-scale forest biodiversity experiment.
Natasja Van Gestel
Texas Tech University, TX·Ecology & Evolution
Measure how experimental warming with open-top chambers changes net ecosystem carbon exchange along an Antarctic gradient from bare glacier soil to full plant cover, using field gas-exchange measurements.
Oscar Sosa
University of Puget Sound, WA·Earth & Environmental Science
Test whether methane made from methylamine and methane made from methylphosphonate in high-molecular-weight dissolved organic matter carry distinct stable carbon isotope signatures.
The school
Cornell University: 37 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 537 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.