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Second annual Lab-o-lympics, December 2012. Click the picture to learn all about it.

Welcome to Duke's "Aquaterrestrial Biogeochemistry" Lab

In our lab we are broadly interested in 2 questions:
      
1. How do ecosystems retain and transform nutrients and energy?
2. How is the answer to Q1 changing as a result of human activities?

We study the movement of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus (and increasingly iron, sulfur, and trace metals) within and between forests, floodplains, wetlands and streams. Our research takes place in Appalachian forests, the floodplains of Glacier National Park as well as in the rapidly urbanizing NC piedmont and the agricultural fields and wetlands of NC's coastal plain.

As a group and as individuals we strive to integrate our research across the classic divide between aquatic and terrestrial biogeochemistry. 

We are also committed to placing our research in the context of ongoing political, legal and regulatory discussions about the protection and management of ecosystems.

Latest Lab News:

Congrats to 2nd year PhD student Matt Ross and incoming PhD student Joanna Blasczczak for being awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowships!!

Congrats to postdoc Dr. Ashley Helton who will be taking a faculty position at U Conn this summer, to postdoc Dr. Tim Covino who has accepted a faculty position at Colorado State University, and to lab alumni Dr. Jen Morse who has accepted a faculty position at Portland State.

Emily awarded the 2013 Yentsch-Schindler award from the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) at the 2013 annual meeting in New Orleans, LA.
Hot off (or in) the Press:

Colman BP, Arnaout CL, Anciaux S, Gunsch C K, Hochella MF, Kim B, Lowry GV, McGill BM, Reinsch BC, Richardson CJ, Unrine JM, Wright JP, Yin L, Bernhardt, ES (2013). "Low Concentrations of Silver Nanoparticles in Biosolids Cause Adverse Ecosystem Responses under Realistic Field Scenario" PLoS ONE, 8(2), e57189. See press release here.

Sudduth, EB, SS Perakis, ES Bernhardt. 2013. Nitrate in watersheds: straight from soils to streams? Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences DOI: 10.1002/jgrg.20030. Read featured summary from AGU here

Somers, KA, ES Bernhardt, JB Grace, BA Hassett, EB Sudduth, S Wang, DL Urban. 2012. Streams in the urban heat island: spatial and temporal variability in temperature. Freshwater Science 32 (1), 309-326