Pamela Templer

Last updated
Pamela H. Templer
Alma materPh.D. Cornell University
B.A. University of California, Santa Cruz
AwardsMetcalf Award, Boston University
NSF CAREER Grant
Scientific career
Fieldsecosystem ecology, biogeochemistry, global change
Website http://people.bu.edu/ptempler/index.html

Pamela H. Templer is an ecosystem ecologist and professor at Boston University who focuses on plant-microbial interaction and their effect on carbon exchange and nutrient cycling. She is also interested in examining how urban ecosystems function, how human actions influence nutrient cycling, atmosphere-biosphere interactions, and other ecosystem processes. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Templer was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She attended Grover Cleveland Humanities Magnet High School. In college, she was a music major at the University of California, Santa Cruz. [2] Templer soon realized that she did not want to pursue a career in music and when looking into other fields, spent a semester in a "Natural History of California" class, where she backpacked through California, while learning about ecosystem management. This class sparked her interest in ecology and led her to spend the summer class at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies (New York), where she learned how to conduct research. [2] She later went to Costa Rica for a semester to study tropical biology, this helped her narrow-down her field of study. Templer went on to earn her PhD from Cornell University under the direction of Todd Dawson (currently a professor at University of California Berkeley).

Career and research

Templer is an ecosystem ecologist and full professor of biology at Boston University, who examines the influence that plant-microbial interactions have on nutrient cycling. Templer and her lab group also investigate how ecosystem disturbance such as, urbanization, air pollution, climate change, have on biosphere-atmosphere-soil interactions. Templer currently examines a variety of nutrient sources such as fog, rain, and atmospheric deposition within forest ecosystems, she also study plant-microbial interactions and their effect on carbon and nitrogen loss and retention within natural and managed ecosystems.

Templer and her lab work around the world, investigating different disturbances on terrestrial ecosystems in different places. These include: temperate forest in the northeast of the United States, tropical forests in Mexico, and urban areas throughout the Greater Boston Area. Much of Templer's work investigating how forests are and will respond to warming and other chronic disturbances takes place at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, a long term ecological research site in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Templer specifically looks at a changing climate in the White Mountains and tries create conditions that the forest may experience within the next century by heating the soil using space heaters and clearing off snow. [3] Under warming conditions there is less snow so soils actually get colder (snow acts as a blanket for soils, insulating them in the winter), leading to freezing of the soil microbe community and changing the way carbon and nutrients are cycled in the forest floor. [3] For example, along with Anne Socci, she found that a smaller snowpack leads to greater soil frost, reducing nitrogen uptake rates in sugar maple trees. [4] Templer also examines how reactive nitrogen in atmospheric deposition varies spatially across forest ecosystems in the northeast with colleague Kathleen Weathers [5]

In addition to her terrestrial biogeochemistry lab, Templer also co-directs the Stable Isotope Lab at Boston University. [6] This fee-for-hire lab also serves to train students in application of stable isotopes to ecology. [5] The stable isotope lab measures on light isotopes, including nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and sulfur. Stable isotopes of these critical elements can help scientists unravel the multiple ecosystem processes that always occur in concert. For example, stable isotopes can be used to determine food web structure and metabolic pathways or determine sources of an element to any given pool (such as different sources of reactive nitrogen).

Templer has written or contributed to over 130 peer-reviewed articles and cited over 4700 times . [7] Her most cited work utilizes stable isotopes (in particular nitrogen) to examine how ecosystems respond to changing climate and other human disturbances. [8] [9] [10]

Teaching and outreach

Templer teaches classes in the Department of Biology at Boston University across a range of topics, including Ecology, Biology of Global Change, Forest Ecology, and Terrestrial Biogeosciences. Templer was praised as a "champion of participatory learning," by often exposing her students to field research when awarded the Metcalf Award from Boston University in 2015. [11] Templer is the Director of the Ph.D. Program in Biogeoscience, Director of the NSF funded Research Traineeship [12] BU URBAN Graduate Program.

Templer has appeared on multiple media outlets discussing her research specifically as well as ecosystems and climate change in general from Scientific American [13] and the Boston Globe [14] to appearing on WBUR's morning edition. [15]

Awards and honors

Related Research Articles

Isotope analysis Analytical technique used to study isotopes

Isotope analysis is the identification of isotopic signature, abundance of certain stable isotopes of chemical elements within organic and inorganic compounds. Isotopic analysis can be used to understand the flow of energy through a food web, to reconstruct past environmental and climatic conditions, to investigate human and animal diets in the past, for food authentification, and a variety of other physical, geological, palaeontological and chemical processes. Stable isotope ratios are measured using mass spectrometry, which separates the different isotopes of an element on the basis of their mass-to-charge ratio.

Soil respiration Chemical process produced by soil and the organisms within it

Soil respiration refers to the production of carbon dioxide when soil organisms respire. This includes respiration of plant roots, the rhizosphere, microbes and fauna.

Mary K. Firestone is a professor of soil microbiology in the Department of Environmental Studies, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Her laboratory's research focuses on the ecology of microbes in various soils, and their contribution to the carbon cycle and nitrogen cycle in particular.

Sarah E. Hobbie is an American ecologist, currently at the University of Minnesota, a National Academy of Sciences Fellow for Ecology, Evolution and Behavior in 2014 and a formerly Minnesota McKnight Land-Grant Professor.

Asmeret Asefaw Berhe Soil biogeochemist

Asmeret Asefaw Berhe is a soil biogeochemist and political ecologist who is the current Director of the Office of Science at the US Department of Energy. She was previously the Professor of Soil Biogeochemistry and the Ted and Jan Falasco Chair in Earth Sciences and Geology in the Department of Life and Environmental Sciences; University of California, Merced. Her research group worked to understand how soil helps regulate the earth's climate.

Sharon J. Hall American ecosystem ecologist

Sharon J. Hall is an ecosystem ecologist and associate professor at the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on ecosystem ecology and the ways that human activity interacts with the environment.

Mercedes Bustamante

Mercedes Bustamante is a biologist born in Chile. Most of her work takes place in the savannah regions in Brazil called the cerrado biome. Her area of interests are studying large scale impacts on the environment, land usage and biogeochemistry. Since 1994 she has been an Professor at the University of Brasília (UnB), where she is currently the Graduate Coordinator of the Ecology Department. She is a member of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group.

Tamara Jane Zelikova is a climate change scientist, advocate and communicator interested in the impacts of environmental change on natural and managed ecosystems. Her interests are broad and include tropical biogeochemistry, as well as the effects of climate change on organisms big and small. She combines a strong emphasis on research with an interest in science communication and outreach, thinking about ways to expand the role of science in tackling global issues.

Wendy Yang is an associate professor of Plant Biology and Geology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where she works on soil biogeochemistry and ecosystem ecology.

Whendee Silver is an American ecosystem ecologist and biogeochemist.

Erika Marín-Spiotta Biogeochemist and ecosystem ecologist.

Erika Marín-Spiotta is a biogeochemist and ecosystem ecologist. She is currently Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is best-known for her research of the terrestrial carbon cycle and is an advocate for underrepresented groups in the sciences, specifically women.

Emily S. Bernhardt is an American ecosystem ecologist, biogeochemist, and professor at Duke University.

Elisabeth Holland is an American climate scientist who focuses on how the carbon and nitrogen cycles interact with earth systems. She has become a key player in the international climate debate. She is currently a professor of climate change at the University of the South Pacific. She is also the director of the Pacific Center for Environmental and Sustainable Development.

M. Francesca Cotrufo is a soil ecologist who focuses her work on litter decomposition and the dynamics of soil organic matter. She is currently a Professor and Associate Head in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, as well the Senior Scientist at the Natural Resource Ecology Lab, at Colorado State University.

Amy D. Rosemond is an American aquatic ecosystem ecologist, biogeochemist, and professor in the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia. Rosemond studies how global change affects freshwater ecosystems, including effects of watershed urbanization, nutrient pollution, and changes in biodiversity on ecosystem function. She was elected an Ecological Society of America fellow in 2018, and has been elected to serve as the Society for Freshwater Science president from 2019-2020.

Christine Goodale is an ecosystem ecologist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University. Goodale conducts research that studies the cycling of water, carbon, nitrogen and other nutrients through forest ecosystems.

Elvira Cuevas Viera is a Puerto Rican ecologist. She is a professor in the department of biology at University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus where she serves as director of the Center for Applied Tropical Ecology and Conservation.

Tana Wood US biogeochemist and ecosystem scientist

Tana Elaine Wood is a biogeochemist and ecosystem scientist with a focus in land-use and climate change. Her research is focused on looking into how these issues affect tropical forested ecosystems and particularly focuses on soil science and below ground research efforts.

Kate Lajtha is an ecologist known for her use of stable isotopes to examine biogeochemical cycling in soils.

Carol Kendall is a hydrologist known for her research tracking nutrients and contaminants in aquatic ecosystems using isotopic tracers.

References

  1. ↑ "Pamela Templer | Biology". www.bu.edu. Retrieved 2018-11-13.
  2. 1 2 "Women in STEM fields call for engineering earlier interest – The Daily Free Press". dailyfreepress.com. Retrieved 2018-11-12.
  3. 1 2 "Meet a 63-year-old, 7,800-acre, living laboratory". Mother Jones. Retrieved 2018-11-12.
  4. ↑ "2015 Metcalf Award Recipient: Pamela Templer » Office of the Provost | Boston University". www.bu.edu. Retrieved 2018-11-12.
  5. 1 2 "Pamela Templer | Northeastern States Research Cooperative". nsrcforest.org. Retrieved 2018-11-12.
  6. ↑ "main.html". www.bu.edu. Retrieved 2018-11-18.
  7. ↑ "Pamela H Templer - Google Scholar Citations". scholar.google.com. Retrieved 2018-11-12.
  8. ↑ "Stable Isotopes in Plant Ecology | Sci-napse | Academic search engine for paper". Scinapse. Retrieved 2018-11-12.
  9. ↑ Craine, Joseph M.; Elmore, Andrew J.; Aidar, Marcos P. M.; Bustamante, Mercedes; Dawson, Todd E.; Hobbie, Erik A.; Kahmen, Ansgar; Mack, Michelle C.; McLauchlan, Kendra K. (2009). "Global patterns of foliar nitrogen isotopes and their relationships with climate, mycorrhizal fungi, foliar nutrient concentrations, and nitrogen availability". The New Phytologist. 183 (4): 980–992. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2009.02917.x . ISSN   1469-8137. PMID   19563444.
  10. ↑ Crowther, T. W.; Todd-Brown, K. E. O.; Rowe, C. W.; Wieder, W. R.; Carey, J. C.; Machmuller, M. B.; Snoek, B. L.; Fang, S.; Zhou, G. (December 2016). "Quantifying global soil carbon losses in response to warming" (PDF). Nature. 540 (7631): 104–108. Bibcode:2016Natur.540..104C. doi:10.1038/nature20150. ISSN   0028-0836. PMID   27905442. S2CID   205251843.
  11. ↑ "2015 Metcalf Award Recipient: Pamela Templer » Office of the Provost | Boston University". www.bu.edu. Retrieved 2018-11-12.
  12. ↑ "NSF Research Traineeship program makes 17 new awards | NSF - National Science Foundation". www.nsf.gov. Retrieved 2018-11-18.
  13. ↑ ClimateWire, Stephanie Paige Ogburn. "Wired Forest May Reveal How New England Forests Respond to Climate Change". Scientific American. Retrieved 2018-11-18.
  14. ↑ "The city is an ecosystem, pipes and all - The Boston Globe". BostonGlobe.com. Retrieved 2018-11-18.
  15. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2018-11-23. Retrieved 2018-11-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  16. ↑ "2015 Metcalf Award Recipient: Pamela Templer » Office of the Provost | Boston University". www.bu.edu. Retrieved 2018-11-12.
  17. ↑ "NSF Award Search: Award#1149929 - CAREER: Role of Plant Nutrient Uptake in Forest Nutrient Retention and Carbon Sequestration: an Integrated Research, Teaching and Outreach Program". www.nsf.gov. Retrieved 2018-11-18.
  18. ↑ "People | Hubbard Brook". hubbardbrook.org. Retrieved 2018-11-18.
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