Ecobiogeochemistry Group

The D’Andrilli “Ecobiogeochemistry” Group investigates carbon cycling and biogeochemistry in marine, freshwater, terrestrial, and cryosphere ecosystems by investigating the quantity and quality of microscopic carbon-based materials (known as dissolved organic matter; DOM). Aquatic, terrestrial, and icy environments can produce, transform, store, and transport many different types of DOM molecules that contribute greatly to global carbon cycling. This means that microscopic molecules that we cannot see without specialized tools, plays a role in our everyday lives, is continually cycling in the ecosystems of our community, and impacts the world around us. Humans are contributing to climate warming at a rate that will dramatically alter or reduce marine, terrestrial, and cryosphere DOM reservoirs within a lifetime. In a warming climate, previously “locked away” DOM stocks are being released from various ecosystems, such as permafrost, soils, and glacial ice, and the resulting DOM reactions from biotic and abiotic pathways are contributing to increasing carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. In the D’Andrilli group, we research the amount and type of DOM (or ecosystem energy) that are stored in glacial ice and produced in rivers, soils, and marine waters, so we can predict its impact in the future. Determining DOM chemical composition signatures provides a mechanism to understand its reactivity and transformation patterns throughout aquatic and terrestrial networks. As a biogeochemist, an important component of my research program is to combine DOM chemistry data with ecological context, which requires an integrated data approach and strong collaborations with biologists, geologists, chemists, ecologists, and physicists. Without a combined ecological approach that values diverse perspectives on ecosystem function, we cannot fully understand ecosystem “puzzles,” resolve environmental challenges, and enforce health environmental policy.