Sharon Billings

Background: Dr. Billings earned her Ph.D. in Ecology at Duke University in 1998.

Current research interests: My current research focuses on how global environmental change can affect ecosystem carbon and nitrogen cycling. In particular, I explore how soil and plant processes such as decomposition and nutrient uptake may be altered in a future climate, and how those alterations can affect ecosystem productivity and subsequent fluxes of important biogeochemical constituents. My recent work has focused on the the effects of elevated CO2 on soil nitrogen cycling; this work is important because limitations on nitrogen availability in a future climate may lower productivity in many ecosystems. Such lowered productivity can affect the ability of those ecosystems to provide important services, including: production of food and wood products for human use; sequestration of atmospheric CO2; and retention of nitrogen, which can prevent nitrogen export from terrestrial to aquatic systems.