Our research focuses on the effects of land use change in tropical ecosystems.  We are investigating how vegetation and soils respond to land use change, and what consequences this has for feedbacks on nutrient cycling.  Our research takes us to the tropical wet forests of the lowlands of Costa Rica at La Selva Biological Station and to the tropical dry forests of the Southern Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico.

Our interests include the effects of climate on nutrient dynamics in secondary and old-growth forests, nutrient inputs into forests recovering from disturbance, biomass recovery and nutrient dynamics after many cycles of shifting cultivation or pasture burns, and nutrient cycling in tropical agroforests.