Hoffman, Daniel

Climate change is increasing the frequency of droughts and heavy rainfall in Michigan, which may cause disturbance to the carbon and nitrogen cycling necessary for soil health and plant growth. Increasing plant diversity in a field has been shown to increase carbon and nitrogen cycling in soils – could plant diversity also make soils more resilient to drying and rewetting disturbances? To find out, I will measure the carbon and nitrogen cycling of soils with different levels of plant diversity, while exposing all of the soils to identical treatments of drying and rewetting.