Caitlin E. Hicks Pries
Associate Professor of Biological Sciences
Graduate Program in Ecology, Evolution, Ecosystems and Society
S.A. Wilde Early Career Achievement Award 2018
Outstanding Early Career Scientist EGU Biogeosciences 2020
I am broadly interested in the terrestrial carbon cycle and how the carbon balance of ecosystems is determined by the interplay of soil and plant processes with climate. I have recently focused on deep soil organic carbon in temperate ecosystems and what processes determine its stability and how those stabilization processes are affected by climate change. Throughout my research, I use isotopes (both natural abundance and enriched levels) as tools: I enrich plants in 13C and 15N in order to trace the fate of their organic matter in soils, I use the δ13C and ∆14C (radiocarbon) of respired CO2 to partition ecosystem into plant and microbial sources, and I use radiocarbon to estimate the age of soil carbon and model soil carbon processes.
Contact
Department(s)
Biological Sciences
Education
- B.A. Middlebury College
- M.S. University of Florida
- Ph.D. University of Florida
Selected Publications
Hicks Pries, C.E., A. Angert, C. Castanha, B. Hilman, and M.S. Torn. 2020. Using Respiration Quotients to Track Changing Sources of Soil Respiration Seasonally and with Experimental Warming. Biogeosciences. https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-3045-2020.
Bailey V.L., C.E. Hicks Pries, K. Lajtha. 2019. What do we know about soil carbon destabilization? Environmental Research Letters. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab2c11.
Hicks Pries C.E., B.N. Sulman, C. West, C. O'Neill, E. Poppleton, R.C. Porras, C. Castanha, B. Zhu, D.B. Wiedemeir, M.S. Torn. 2018. Root litter decomposition slows with soil depth. Soil Biology & Biochemistry 125: 105-114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2018.07.002
Hicks Pries C.E., Castanha C., Porras R.C., Phillips C., Torn M.S. 2018. The whole-soil carbon flux in response to warming: Technical comment response. Science 359 (6378). DOI: 10.1126/science.aao0457.