Stephen Pacala

pacala@princeton.edu

Population biology and community ecology of plants; theoretical and mathematical ecology; global interactions among the biosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere.

Anping is interested in the global carbon cycle and climate change, understanding the impact of human activity to global carbon balance, vegetation dynamics and modelling, biodiversity and biogeography.

Ray Dybzinski

rdybzins@Princeton.edu

Ray studies the mechanisms of plant species coexistence and plant community structure; the effects of resource dynamics, recruitment, and natural enemies on community dynamics; human impacts on ecological and biogeochemical systems".

Surface-atmosphere interaction and its consequences for the Earth's climate; long-term climate variations and connections with long-term variations of surface properties.

Understanding global patterns and controls of nitrogen cycling, nitrogen fixation, plant growth, and ecosystem carbon storage.

Zack Subin

zsubin@princeton.edu

Zack is working to improve the treatment of subgrid horizontal heterogeneity and soil carbon cycling in the land-surface component of the GFDL earth system model, with application to understanding interactions between peatlands and climate change. General research interests include: interactions between changes in terrestrial surface and subsurface physical and biochemical properties and changes in regional and global climate: regional and global climate modeling; land cover and land use change; lake physics and dynamics; wetland and methane biogeochemistry; permafrost and thermokarst physics; feedbacks to climate change.

Ensheng studies the terrestrial ecosystem and disturbance modeling by using data assimilation approaches to analyze and improve ecosystem models.

Understanding how plants control the earth's chemical cycles and energy balance, and how soils and climate interact with plant species to determine their distribution on earth. Remote sensing simulation, flux measurements and modeling, and wireless sensor networks.

Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning; the role of plant functional types in nutrient and carbon cycles; tropical forest dynamics; anthropogenic alterations to plant communities and ecosystems.

Determining mechanisms of community assembly and species coexistence.  Currently, Caroline is exploring the role of resource availability in forest dynamics by extending the framework of a macroscopic forest dynamics model. 

Sam is interested in the impacts of current fire regimes on the global carbon cycle, the way these impacts will change in the future, and the ramifications of changing fire regimes for forest conservation and greenhouse gas accounting.