Fellowship Awards for Long-term Ecological Research

Semester Fellowships

2023-2024
  • DeShae Dillard (Entomology) – Functional diversity and community composition of Diptera in agroecosystems
  • Juliana Hanle (Earth and Environmental Sciences) – Can synthetic aperture radar remotely identify climate-smart management and crop yield?
  • Jincheng Huang (Fisheries and Wildlife, Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability) – The impacts of COVID-19 on global agricultural landscapes and biodiversity
  • Nan Jia (Fisheries and Wildlife, Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability) – Climate change drives crop-weed competition shifts and threatens future food security
  • Tvisha Martin (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Can soil food webs recover from drought? Assessing nematode communities within rain exclusion shelters that vary in drought intensity
  • Prateek Sharma (Earth and Environmental Sciences) – Understanding the major drivers for N2O dynamics under different management systems
  • Goutham Thotakuri (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Effects of water stress on soil pore structure in plant systems of contrasting biological diversity
  • Ethan Weinrich (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Bioassay for detecting the coupled effects of cover crop species and AMF on soil phosphorus acquisition from disparate soils
  • Moriah Young (Integrative Biology) – Uncovering short- and long-term temporal changes of an early successional field’s soil microbial community affected by climate warming and drought
  • Zheng Li (Civil and Environmental Engineering) – Examining the microorganisms assimilating carbon from 1,4-dioxane in contaminated and uncontaminated soil sediments
2022-2023
  • Stephanie Clark (Integrative Biology) – Farmscapes to Forests: Re-establishing the KBS-LTER Artist-in-Residency
  • Kara Dobson (Integrative Biology) – The effects of warming and drought on volatile emissions from Solidago canadensis
  • Cynthia Fiser (Entomology) – Weed seed and insect predation by ground beetles within prairie strips and surrounding row crops
  • Brandon Latorre (Plant Biology) – Phenological responses in experimentally-restored prairies
  • Natalie Loduca (Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics) – Elicitation and estimation of risk preference and subjective probabilities to understand farmer decisions on climate change adaptation
  • Tvisha Martin (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Does plant community composition affect soil food web functioning across varying aggregate sizes?
  • KC Rabin (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – When does cover crop residue release nitrogen during the cash crop season?
  • Corinn Rutkoski (Integrative Biology) – Farmscapes to Forests: Re-establishing the KBS-LTER Artist-in-Residency
  • Tayler Ulbrich (Integrative Biology) – Exploring how farmers’ perceptions of soil health affect their management decisions
  • Moriah Young (Integrative Biology) – Does the soil microbial community explain plant responses to warming and drought in the field?
2021-2022
  • Isabela Lima Borges (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – The effects of plant inbreeding on the legume-rhizobia mutualism (lightning talk)
  • Andrew Curtright (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Picky eaters: how C preference influences microbial community function (lightning talk)
  • Kara Dobson (Integrative Biology) – The effects of drought and warming on the emission of volatile organic compounds from plants (lightning talk)
  • Alice Puchalsky (Integrative Biology) – Prairie strips and caterpillar-parasitoid networks (lightning talk)
  • Corinn Rutkoski (Integrative Biology) – Soil microbial community responses
    to prairie strip establishment (lightning talk)
  • Pietro Sciusco (Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences) – Global warming impacts of a managed landscape in southwestern Michigan: biogeophysical and biogeochemical climate regulations (lightning talk)
  • Abrianna Soule (Plant Biology) – Combined effects of soil deposition and below-ground mutualism on plant defensive chemistry (lightning talk)
  • Luwen Wan (Earth and Environmental Sciences) – Mapping tile drainage using satellite imagery and random forest machine-learning (lightning talk)
  • Moriah Young (Integrative Biology) – The interactive effects of climate change and soil microbiomes on below- and aboveground trophic interactions in an early successional plant community (lightning talk)
  • Jennifer Zavalnitskaya (Entomology) – Evaluating herbivore community composition across agricultural landscapes (lightning talk)
  • Yuqian Zhang (Fisheries and Wildlife) – Biofuel impact on life on land: Sustainable Development Goal 15 (lightning talk)
2020-2021
  • Oishi Bagchi (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Microbial dormancy and resuscitation in response to stress- associated phytohormones (lightning talk)
  • Isabela Lima Borges (Kellogg Biological Station, Integrative Biology) – Testing the effects of inbreeding and soil legacy on legume-rhizobia mutualisms (lightning talk)
  • Grant Falvo (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) –  Resilience of microbial communities and soil organic matter formation to more extreme precipitation regimes across agricultural landscapes (lightning talk)
  • Veronica Frans (Fisheries and Wildlife, Environmental Science and Policy Program):  New era, new niche, new theory: revising ecological niche theory to account for human influence in the Anthropocene (lightning talk)
  • Jinho Lee (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) –  Long-term effect of plant diversity on soil C dynamics and C-based interactions between plant diversity, physical micro-environment, and microorganisms (lightning talk)
  • Daniel Hoffman (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences) – Plant diversity Ecosystem Services and Resiliency (lightning talk)
  • Vidhya Ramalingam (Environmental Engineering Department) – Evaluation of 1,4-Dioxane Biodegradation Using Various Soil Inocula and Biomolecular Tools (lightning talk)
  • Doug Slater (Department of Community Sustainability) – Farmer Mental Models of Nutrient Management Decisions (lightning talk)
  • Allison Zahorec (Entomology) – Does prairie strip establishment alter the vertical stratification of microarthopod communities? (lightning talk)
  • Xinyi Tu (Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, Environmental Science and Policy Program) –  Translating Science to Practice: Soil Health Assessment Adoption by Farmers in Michigan
2019-2020
  • Isabela Borges (IBIO) – Testing the effects of inbreeding and soil legacy on legume-rhizobia mutualisms
  • Lindsey Kemmerling (IBIO) – Tradeoffs among ecosystem services and functions for different methods of crop management
  • Alyssa Kim (PSMS) – Long-term effect of plant diversity on soil micro-scale physics and its implications for O2 supply and N2O production
  • Craig Kohn (Teacher Education) – Future of Agriculture Curriculum for Teaching Sustainability (FACTS)
  • Jennifer Lai (Sociology) – Comparing environmental knowledge: The case of scientists and farmers in the Midwestern United States
  • Cheyenne Lei (GESS) – Albedo induced global warming potential on biofuel cropping ecosystems
  • Yingjie Li (FW) – Ecosystem services dynamics and interactions in globalized agricultural landscapes
  • Corinn Rutkoski (IBIO) – Soil microbial dynamics in newly established conservation strips (talk)
  • Ben Tirrell (PSMS) – Understanding SOC dynamics under different management systems in Michigan: calibration of an in-situ reflectance method for SOC pools initialization
  • Xinyi Tu (PSMS) – Connecting on-farm study and long-term ecological research to improve nitrogen synchrony
  • Allison Zahorec (Entomology) – Evaluating soil microarthropod community structure across a gradient of agricultural intensification

Full Year Fellowships

2018
  • Heather Kittredge (IBIO) – The role of horizontal gene transfer in facilitating adaptation to extreme drying-rewetting
2017
  • Riva Denny (SOC) – The Role of Environmental Knowledge in Farmer Conservation Decision-making
2016
  • Susan Magnoli (PBL) – Evolution in the LTER: the role of rapid adaptation in plant population establishment
2015
  • Dustin Kincaid (ZOL) – Broad-scale comparative studies of inland wetland across LTER sites
2014
  • Leah Palm-Forster (AFRE) – Integrating economic and ecological models to inform policies that enhance ecosystem services in working agricultural landscapes
2013
  • Placid Mpeketula (CSS) – Investigation on soil carbon accumulation, mycorrhizal community composition, soil aggregation and water infiltration along a management intensity gradient
2012
  • Leilei Ruan (CSS) – International collaboration: Expanding the influence of the KBS LTER in mainland China and Taiwan
2011
  • Lauren Kinsman-Costello (ZOL)
    • Project 1. Phosphorus cycling: Cross-site data synthesis and collaboration
    • Project 2. Leaving a data legacy: Towards graduate student data sharing

Summer Fellowships

2018
  • Willam ‘B.J.’ Baule (GEO) – Field level validation for modeling the effects of precipitation variability on nitrogen loss in agricultural systems
  • Heather Kittredge (IBIO) – Horizontal gene transfer of nitrogen fixation genes
  • Reid Longley (MMG) – Analyzing the soy-associated microbiome and its effect on plant health
  • Andrew Myers (ENT) – The role of ants in monarch butterfly egg and larval survival in grasslands
  • Eeswaran Rasu (PSMS) – Physical controls and stability analysis of soil moisture across different agricultural systems
  • Michael Ryskamp (PLB) – Effects of nitrogen addition on plant-virus interactions in prairie grasses
  • Braeden Van Deynze (AFRE) – Why do farms custom hire for pest control? Pest population dynamics as transaction cost drivers
2017
  • Tyler Hampton (EES) – Revealing a New Mechanism for Hyporheic Denitrification and Greenhouse Gas Production
  • Matthew Houser (SOC) – Farmer fertilizer use and climate change: A social-ecological systems approach
  • Jean René Thélusmond (CEE) – Determining the Potential of Diverse Soil Communities to Metabolize Emerging Environmental Contaminants using Metagenomics
  • Prakash Kumar Jha (PSMS) – Understanding Drivers of Cropping Systems Dynamics in Southwest Michigan
  • Guanyuan Shuai (EES) – Using Radarsat-2 data to quantify the effects of management on spatial variability of crop growth at the LTER and scale-up fields
2016
  • Sydney Ruhala (EES) – Revealing the role of stream-groundwater interactions on watershed carbon processing
  • Riva Denny (SOC) – US Farmers’ Actions and Beliefs Pertaining to Nutrient Management and Climate Change
2015
  • Michelle Quigley (PSMS) – Biogeochemical cycling and microbial community composition in unconsolidated detrital accumulations in shallow aquatic ecosystems
  • Elizabeth Schultheis (PLB) and Melissa Kjelvik (ZOL) – Unearthing scientific stories: Creating Data Nuggets with over 25 years of LTER data to improve K-16 quantitative literacy
2014
  • Dustin Kincaid (ZOL) – Biogeochemical cycling and microbial community composition in unconsolidated detrital accumulations in shallow aquatic ecosystems
  • Brendan O’Neill (PSMS) – An interdisciplinary approach for linking soil agroecosystem functions with farmer decision-making
2013
  • Christina Leshko (SOC)Samantha Noll (PHL)Zachary Piso (PHL), and Ian Werkheiser (PHL) – Recognizing value pluralism among ecosystem services experts and public stakeholders
2012
  • Moslem Ladoni (CSS) – Effects of cover crop on soil carbon sequestration and nitrate levels
  • Lisa Stelzner (PLB) – Phenology, abundance, diversity and arrangement (scattered versus clumped) of forbs in biofuel sites classified as marginal land
2011
  • Nikhil Jaikumar (CSS) – Ecophysiology of perennial grain crops
  • Megan Woltz (ENT) – Effects of landscape characteristics on predatory insect abundance, movement, and resulting biocontrol of crop pests

Small Graduate Research Grants

2020
  • Michael Ryskamp (PBL) – Effects of “wild” virus infection on within-plant trait heterogeneity and biotic interactions in Panicum virgatum L. (switchgrass)
  • Corinn Rutkoski (KBS) – Soil microbial community composition during prairie strip establishment
2019
  • Michael Ryskamp (PBL) – Wild virus effects on Panicum virgatum drought stress tolerance and plant-herbivore interactions
  • Meredith Zettlemoyer (KBS) – The effect of climate warming and seed limitation on local species declines
2018
  • Timothy Silberg (CSUS) – Modeling Parasitic Weed Emergence: A Systems Approach
2017
  • Rachel Hestrin (Cornell) – Microbial contributions to arbuscular mycorhizal nitrogen uptake and transfer to plants
  • Di Liang (KBS) – Assessing kinetics of nitrification and nitrification-derived nitrous oxide (N2O)
2016
  • Dustin Kincaid (KBS) – Revealing the biogeochemical importance of flocculent sediments in shallow aquatic ecosystems
2015
  • Mitchell Roth (PSMS) – The soybean microbiome and correlations to Sudden Death Syndrome incidence
  • Bonnie McGill (KBS) – The missing carbon link: Are ag lime and groundwater irrigation sequestering carbon?
2014
  • Erin Haramoto (Hort) – Measuring nitrogen loss in strip-tilled sweet corn with deep fertilizer banding
  • Kristi Gdanetz (PLP) – The wheat microbiome across different land management practices
  • Bonnie McGill (KBS) – Inorganic carbon weathering in an agroecosystem: fertilizer & groundwater irrigation effects
2013
  • Kristi Gdanetz (PLP) – The wheat microbiome across different land management practices
  • Christina Leshko (SOC), Samantha Noll (PHL), Zachary Piso (PHL), and Ian Werkheiser (PHL) – Recognizing Value Pluralism among Ecosystem Services Experts and Public Stakeholders
2012
  • Chris Wright (MMG) – OTU richness and functional potential of decomposer fungi in Michigan agricultural soils
2010
  • Brad Gottshall (University of Louisville) – Effects of disturbance on mycorrhizal mutualisms, abundance and diversity in agroecosystems
2007
  • Courtney Gallaher – Soil phosphorus availability
2006
  • Barbara Bahnmann (University of Western Ontario) – Basidiomycete diversity in row-crop agriculture
2005
  • Amy Burgin (ZOL) – Dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium in agriculturally influenced streams
  • Kristin Huizinga (MMG) – Do disturbance and productivity affect proteobacterial denitrifier diversity?
  • Wendy Mahaney (PBL) – How does the reestablishment of C4 grasses into C3-dominated old-fields affect belowground carbon and nitrogen cycling?
  • Uri Levine (MMG) – Characterization of metnanotroph populations
  • Terry Loecke (CSS) – The influence of residue aggreation on C and N cycling
  • Stefan Lupold (University of Sheffield, UK) – Sperm quality and reproductive success in redwinged blackbirds (agelaius phoeniceus)
  • Senthil Kumar Subramanian (CSS) – Spatial variability analysis of soil carbon in a perennial system (Populus sp.)
2003
  • Stephanie Eichorst (MMG) – The ecological role of Acidobacterium in the soil environment
2002
  • Adam Pitt (GLG) – Identification of N2O from soil denitrification using isotopomers
  • Lisa Geason (GLG) – Perceptions of agroecology and choice of soil management practices
  • Rich Smith (PBL) – Crop rotation and cover crops: Effects of increasing crop diversity on associated weed communities
  • Stuart Grandy (CSS) – Soil aggregation and ecosystem function
  • Stephen South (GEO) – Hyperspectral radiometric readings of agricultural crops (renewal)
  • Kristin Huizinga (MMG) – The ecology of Plantomycetales in soil agroecosystems
2001
  • Charles McKeown (ENT) – Response of the Asian Ladybeetle, Harmonia axyridis to the presence of soybean aphid, Aphis glycines, and Late season Coccinellid dispersion patterns and movement during harvest
  • Stephen South (GEO) – Hyperspectral radiometric readings of agricultural crops