Our Lab

The main focus of the research of the Soils lab is the interplay between soil microbial communities and nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. We hope to better understand the link between microbial, both fungal and bacterial, community composition and ecosystem functions, with an interest in how human activities (climate change, nitrogen deposition, etc.) affect this linkage. We combine data and information from microbial ecology, soil science and soil chemistry using methods from all these approaches to examine below-ground dynamics, and in particular as it relates to nutrient cycling.

Donald R. Zak

Alexander H. Smith Distinguished University Professor of Ecology,

Arthur F. Thurnau Professor,


Burton V. Barnes Collegiate Professor of Ecology

University of Michigan
School for Environment and Sustainability

News

Jennifer’s paper is live!

Jennifer Wen, a former SEAS Master's student in the Zak lab, now has a paper out titled "Ammonium oxidation by bacteria and archaea have functional implications for nitrification across a forested landscape". This work draws on her thesis work on the amoA gene of archaea along a natural nitrogen mineralization gradient, but it expanded the scope to include ammonia-oxidizing bacteria in the same system. The amoA gene encodes for the gene that is the first step in nitrification, which converts ammonium (NH3+) to nitrite (NO2-), and understanding the diversity and composition of this gene can give us a better understanding...
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