Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
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Chou, Cleo (‘14 - ‘16)
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Cleo’s research is on the relationship between nutrient and carbon cycling in lowland tropical rainforests, with a focus on trees. She incorporates the effects of ecological competition and species traits to understand nutrient limitation of the growth of tropical forests, an important carbon sink. To do this, she uses a combination of theoretical modeling and field measurements and experiments in the forest of Costa Rica. Broadly, her interests include forest dynamics, nutrient and carbon cycles, tropical forest ecology and conservation, and the role of biodiversity and species traits in these topics, as well as the intersection between science and environmental policy.
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Batterman, Sarah (‘11 - ‘13)
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Sarah studies nutrient limitation on primary productivity in terrestrial ecosystems. Her work focuses on symbiotic nitrogen fixation, what controls its prevalence, and how patterns of fixation change across heterogeneous tropical forests. She finds symbiotic fixation particularly fascinating not only because plants can use it to bypass the soil to get essential nitrogen and build up nitrogen in the ecosystem, but also because it could help tropical forests store more carbon as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise. This would offset some of the world’s carbon emissions.
