KBS LTER

Kellogg Biological Station | Long-Term Ecological Research

Follow us on instagramFollow us on blueskyOpen the Aglogview current local weather
  • Home
  • ABOUT
    • KBS LTER PROGRAM
    • PROJECT HISTORY
    • PEOPLE
    • LTER NETWORK
    • IN THE NEWS
  • RESEARCH
    • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
      • CLIMATE CHANGE
      • LANDSCAPE DIVERSITY
      • SOIL MICROBES
      • CLEAN WATER
    • AREAS OF RESEARCH
      • AGRONOMY
      • MICROBIAL ECOLOGY
      • PLANT DYNAMICS
      • INSECT DYNAMICS
      • BIOGEOCHEMISTRY
      • REGIONALIZATION
      • ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
      • BIOFUELS
    • LONG-TERM EXPERIMENTS
    • SITE DESCRIPTION AND MAPS
      • LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
      • SITE DESCRIPTION
      • SITE HISTORY
      • SOIL DESCRIPTION
      • PLOT LAYOUTS
      • THEMATIC MAPS
    • PUBLICATIONS
      • ALL PUBLICATIONS
      • PUBLICATIONS BY EXPERIMENT
      • DISSERTATIONS only
      • SYNTHESIS BOOK only
      • SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS
      • PUBLICATION DATASETS
      • LTER MEETING ABSTRACTS
  • DATA
    • DATA CATALOG
    • RESEARCH PROTOCOLS
    • AIRPHOTOS
    • SATELLITE IMAGERY
    • GIS DATA
    • TERMS OF USE
    • DATA SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
  • WORK WITH US
    • CONDUCTING RESEARCH
      • RESEARCH FACILITIES
      • SITE USE POLICY/FORMS
      • ASSOCIATED PROJECTS
    • COLLABORATE
    • GRAD OPPORTUNITIES & FUNDING
    • NEW RESEARCHERS AND STUDENTS
    • ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
    • JOB OPENINGS
  • PUBLIC PROGRAMS
    • K-12 PARTNERSHIP
    • DATA NUGGETS
    • MiSTRIPS
    • ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE
    • FIELD TRIPS AND TOURS
    • RESOURCES
  • PHOTOS
  • BLOG
  • CONTACT US

Collaboration between Michigan farmers and LTER researchers provides insights into soil health at the margins of agricultural fields

5.6.25

The multi-year collaboration aims to leverage farmer knowledge and experience and combine it with soil sampling to determine how soil conditions are impacted by being on the edge of agricultural fields, leading to useful management recommendations for creating productive farmlands. Intensive agriculture requires widespread adoption of conservation practices to mitigate loss of ecosystem services. Planting native perennial vegetation at the edge-of-fields (EOF) is a conservation practice shown to improve soil health and protect water quality. The deep root systems and stiff stems of

Read More

Long-term research at the KBS LTER reveals how changes in land use shape soil structure and carbon storage

4.29.25

Using high-resolution X-ray imaging, researchers from the KBS LTER tested soil samples from the LTER Main Cropping System Experiment and discovered that intensive agriculture continues to influence soil porosity and carbon content for decades after restoration to native habitat. Even after 35 years, restored soils contained only about 50% of the organic carbon found in native grasslands and forests. When it comes to agriculture, it’s not just about what’s in the soil, but also how the soil is structured. Given that much of our land is converted from native habitat to agriculture, it’s

Read More

Long-term study reveals best practices for building soil carbon in agricultural soils

2.25.25

Soil Profile

Investigators at the KBS LTER site find differences in soil carbon gain among cover cropped, no-till, and perennial cropping systems after 25-years. Cover cropping found to be a powerful tool for building soil carbon even in cropping systems that are plowed. No-till and diverse perennial plantings also emerge as effective ways to build long-term soil carbon stores. Soil carbon, often called the foundation of soil fertility, plays a crucial role in enhancing plant water availability, supporting beneficial microbes and insects, improving drainage, and promoting nutrient cycling and

Read More

Trials and tribulations of a PhD student: Reflections from an LTER Fellow

1.10.24

PI Phoebe Zarnetske (left) and PhD candidate Moriah Young (right) posing outside of an Open Top Chamber and under a rainout shelter that simulate warming, drought, and warming + drought.

Moriah Young is a graduate student at the Kellogg Biological Station and a member of Phoebe Zarnetske's Lab. Her PhD research seeks to understand the effects of climate change on soil biota, plant, and herbivore interactions. Using a combination of field and greenhouse studies, Moriah works to understand the ways in which the composition and structure of soil microbial communities respond to warming and drought, as well as describing the role that the soil microbial community has on plant traits, stress responses, and insect preferences in the presence of warming and drought.  I went into

Read More

Article featuring KBS research wins outstanding paper award

1.30.23

A paper that examines best practices for improving soil health over time has been recognized as outstanding by the American Society of Agronomy, or ASA. The paper, spearheaded by W.K. Kellogg Biological Station resident faculty and MSU assistant professor Christine Sprunger, detailed research that was conducted at the KBS Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center site. Tvisha Martin and Meredith Mann also contributed to the paper, titled “Systems with greater perenniality and crop diversity enhance soil biological health,” which was originally published in 2020 in the journal Agricultural

Read More

Prairie strip ecology, art, and advocacy in the LTER: Reflections from an LTER Fellow

2.23.22

Corinn Rutkoski is a graduate student in Sarah Evan's lab at the Kellogg Biological Station. She is broadly interested in the use of perennials in agricultural systems, science policy, and soil health. Her research path has been propelled by a reciprocal inspiration among ecology, conservation, and creativity.   In September 2018, Lisa Schulte Moore was scheduled to give a seminar at KBS titled Prairie strips improve biodiversity and multiple ecosystem services from corn-soybean croplands. At the time, I was a technician in Sarah Evans’ lab at KBS, considering graduate school

Read More

Disentangling the complex effects of climate change on above and belowground communities: Reflections from an LTER Fellow

1.24.22

Open top chambers

Graduate researcher, Moriah Young, is a Ph.D. student in Dr. Phoebe Zarnetske’s lab at Michigan State University. The lab uses open top chambers (OTCs) to study how biotic interactions and climate change directly and indirectly affect community structure and function at the KBS LTER.  Climate change is a pressing threat to ecosystems around the world. From warmer temperatures to more unpredictable rainfall, climate change has shown to have a myriad of effects on ecosystems. Most research has focused on direct effects of climate change on species. For example, how does warming

Read More

A new perspective – using bioenergy crops to alleviate global warming: Reflections from an LTER fellow

9.16.20

Jinho in the lab

Jinho Lee is a PhD student in the Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences Department at Michigan State University. He works in the Kravchenko lab with interests in carbon dynamics of soil. Today we are facing one of the biggest environmental challenges that our species has never faced, and one that is caused by our own actions. Since the Industrial Revolution, the worldwide carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have increased due to use of C-based fossil fuels. This has resulted in global warming.  To alleviate global warming and reduce the dependence on fossil fuels, several alternative

Read More

Understanding the role of microbial diversity in soil ecosystem functioning: Reflections from a LTER Fellow

8.31.20

Grant Falvo is a PhD student in the Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences Department at Michigan State University. He works in the Robertson lab within the disciplines of soil microbial ecology and biogeochemistry and is interested in global change phenomena broadly. There are more microorganisms in a typical handful of soil than there are people on this planet. Every year these microbes emit >5 times as much CO2 as all the fossil fuel emissions emitted by humans. Yet recent research is beginning to uncover the dominant role these microbes play in stabilizing a similarly large

Read More

Supporting Michigan farmers using soil health assessment tools: Reflections from an LTER fellow

8.26.20

Graduate researcher, Xinyi Tu, is a graduate student advised by Dr. Sieglinde Snapp in the Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences Department at Michigan State University (MSU). The term “soil health” is similar to that of the health of an organism – it originates from the underlying connection of soil to animal and human health, and to the connection between soil and its living biota. However, there is no concensus amongst scholars as to what soil health means, and various definitions can be found in the literature. This confusion translates to farmers through the creation

Read More

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

Recent News and Events

  • New research leverages long-term treatments in novel ways to study plant biotic interactions
  • Announcing the 2025 KBS LTER Artists-in-Residence!
  • Graduate research from the KBS LTER reveals the value of soil microbe diversity for sustainable agriculture
  • Science Communication and Data Literacy: Reflections on My Fellowship with Data Nuggets 
  • Now & Then: An evening with KBS LTER Artist-in-Residence, Erica Bradshaw

Blog Categories

  • Education and Outreach News
  • Events
  • Research News

Copyright © 2025 Michigan State University Board of Trustees | East Lansing, MI | 48824

  • LEGAL
  • MSU HOME
  • SITEMAP
  • RSS
  • EMAIL