ECOSYSTEMS STUDIES
Work with terrestrial and aquatic scientists in a wide variety of ecosystems ranging from the streams, lakes, and tundra of the Alaskan Arctic (limits on plant primary production) to sediments of Massachusetts Bay (controls of nitrogen cycling), to forests in New England (effects of soil warming on carbon and nitrogen cycling) and South America (effects of conversion of rain forest to pasture on greenhouse gas fluxes), and to large estuaries in the Gulf of Maine (effects of nutrients and organic matter in stream runoff on the plankton and benthos). Many projects, such as those dealing with carbon and nitrogen cycling in forests, streams, and estuaries, use the stable isotopes 13C and 15N as a means of investigating natural processes. Learn how to construct mathematical models of ecosystem processes from data collected from field and laboratory research. Some of these models are combined with geographically referenced data to produce estimates of how environmental changes affect key ecosystem indexes such as net primary productivity and carbon storage throughout the world’s terrestrial biosphere.
Work with scientists in these laboratories at the MBL:
The Ecosystems Center
Learn about additional research opportunities, and apply through this program at Brown:
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Department of Geological Sciences
Related Web Site:
Center for Environmental Studies