Docherty Lab
microbial ecology

Restoring Microbial Communities

Prior to the 1820's, much of the North American Midwest was dominated by tallgrass prairie and oak/savanna ecosystems. With European expansion to the West, much of this natural ecosystem was replaced by agricultural crops. This conversion resulted in a fundamental loss of many ecosystem services that tallgrass prairies provide. Tallgrass prairies serve as importat habitats for insect pollinators and migratory birds, reservoirs of high plant biodiversity to protect against invasive plant species encroachment and vast underground reservoirs of plant and microbial carbon storage. Today, land managers and private citizens are working to reclaim agricultural fields and restore them back to the native tallgrass prairie ecosystem. By removing invasive species, re-introducing prescribed fires into the landscape and seeding with native plants, these restored prairies can recover many ecosystem services they formerly provided. Traditionally, land managers rely on visual assessment of a restoration to determine it's success.  However, decades of tilling and fertilization can result in permanant effects on belowground microbial biodiversity and nutrient cycling.  Yet, restoring belowground soil processes and microbial biodiversity is not typically a focus for management. Our work examines how soil microbial communities are impacted by agricultural and land management, with a particular focus on the effects of prescribed fire. We are examining best-practices for methods of restoring belowground function that can be applied by managers with a limited budget. Ultimately our goal is to develop techniques that can reconnect above- and belowground restoration to create robust ecosystems that resist disturbance.