Event

The Department of Earth & Environmental Science

University of Pennsylvania

Invites you to attend a EES Seminar Series

Friday, January 26, 2024 - 3:00 PM

"Biological Controls of Soil Organic Matter and Responses to Flood Events”

Soil carbon is made up of chemically and physically diverse pools that are in constant flux, undergoing sometimes rapid and simultaneous biological and chemical transformations. Whether soil C compounds are mineralized to CO2, used by microorganism to build new biomass, or become more protected within the soil depends on momentary environmental conditions and the soil biological community. I use an example of fungal community trait composition to illustrate the biological regulation of soil C accumulation and how, in the process, soil C pools are altered.  I then consider how changes to the soil environment, with an emphasis on flooding and soil physical structure, has reverberating impacts across soil C pools.

Dr. Cynthia Kallenbach

Assistant Professor

Natural Resource Science Department

McGill University, Québec Canada

Cynthia is an Assistant Professor at McGill University in the Natural Resource Sciences department. Her research group integrates soil ecology and biogeochemistry to understand soil organic matter turnover and accumulation and microbial-plant interactions affecting carbon and nutrient cycling under land use and global change. She has two MSc from University of California-Davis in International Agriculture Development and in Soil Biogeochemistry, and completed her PhD from the University of New Hampshire in Earth and Environmental Science. Before coming to McGill, she was a United States Department of Agriculture postdoctoral fellow at Colorado State University.