US-Argentina Dissertation Research: The Imprint of Vegetation on Soil Nutrient Pools: The Effect of Afforestation in the Pampas

这个美国-阿根廷论文增强补助金将支持埃斯特万G。在罗伯特B博士的指导下，Jobbagy。杜克大学的杰克逊教授与奥斯瓦尔多·E.布宜诺斯艾利斯大学的萨拉。 研究人员将利用南美洲的草原/森林生态系统研究植物对土壤养分垂直分布的控制，这些生态系统几乎没有受到人为输入的影响。 该研究将针对植物在陆地生态系统地下资源积累和垂直分布中的作用提出四个具体假设，并有可能回答植物如何改变土壤养分库及其分布的问题。 这一专题对陆地生态学和地球化学很重要，并与改变土地利用模式和全球变化的其他方面有关的植物群落变化有关。 从更广泛的意义上说，这项工作有助于理解世界土壤在植被和气候的单独影响下是如何发展的。

This U.S.-Argentina dissertation enhancement grant will support Esteban G. Jobbagy, under the direction of Dr. Robert B. Jackson of Duke University, to work with Professor Osvaldo E. Sala at the University of Buenos Aires. The researchers will investigate plant controls on the vertical distribution of soil nutrients using grassland/forest ecosystems in South America that have been little impacted by anthropogenic inputs. The research will address four specific hypotheses regarding the role of plants in mediating the accumulation and vertical distribution of belowground resources in terrestrial ecosystems.The research has the potential to answer the question of how plants alter soil nutrient pools and their distribution. This topic is important for terrestrial ecology and biogeochemistry and has relevance for plant community changes associated with altered patterns of land-use and other aspects of global change. In a broader sense this work contributes to understanding how the soils of the world have developed under the separate influences of vegetation and climate.