The Czimczik lab’s research aims at understanding the impacts of climate change, alterations in natural disturbance frequencies (i.e. fire), and changes in land use and management (i.e. urbanization) on the cycling of carbon and nitrogen in terrestrial ecosystems. Our research seeks to appreciate and predict how human activities will impact the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems in the future and how changing terrestrial ecosystems will feedback to the climate system. A major focus of these activities is on high-latitude ecosystems, i.e. arctic tundra and boreal forests.
To obtain these goals, we exploit a variety of geochemical tools, including trace gas analysis and stable- and radio-isotope analysis. The work has a very strong foundation of field observations – we use both unmanipulated research sites (e.g. natural gradients, chronosequences) and actively manipulated research sites.