Thursday, April 24th, 7:30 EDT

As human activity continues to pour CO2 into the atmosphere, terrestrial ecosystems are becoming increasingly important natural carbon sinks that help mitigate this atmospheric carbon accumulation. Currently, terrestrial ecosystems take up and sequester 1/3 of humans’ annual carbon emissions, but how long this so-called “CO2 Fertilization” effect will persist is highly uncertain. Plants’ continued ability to take up nutrients from the soil is critical for CO2 fertilization to occur, and their primary means of doing so in most ecosystems is through partnerships with mycorrhizal fungi. This talk will explore experimental evidence from both temperate and tropical forests on the increased role that belowground mycorrhizal partnerships will play in supporting nutrient acquisition, tree growth, and terrestrial carbon sequestration in a future CO2-enriched world.

Dr. Ben Taylor is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. His research focuses broadly on how terrestrial ecosystems respond to various aspects of global change and what those responses will mean for the future of terrestrial ecosystems to capture and store carbon. Specifically, work in the Taylor lab addresses how key partnerships between plant roots and soil microbes, such as mycorrhizal fungi and nitrogen-fixing bacteria, will impact how plants respond to increases in atmospheric CO2, temperature, drought, human land use, and other anthropogenically driven changes.