Sharon Billings
Associate Professor
Global Change Biology and Biogeochemistry
Ph.D., Duke University
Kansas Biological Survey
Higuchi Hall
Phone: (785) 864-1560 (office)
Fax: (785) 864-1534
Links
Research Interests
Billings' research characterizes the features governing nitrogen, carbon and water fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems, and how these dynamics are influenced by environmental change. I focus on global-scale perturbations (e.g., changed precipitation patterns and temperature regimes, elevated carbon dioxide, altered nitrogen availability) in an effort to predict how Earth's biogeochemical cycles--and their dependencies on each other--will function in the future. Such work is critical for understanding the atmospheric composition and ecosystem production of our planet.
Representative Publications
Billings, S.A., Ziegler, S.E., Schlesinger, W.H., Benner, R., Richter, D.deB. 2012. Predicting carbon cycle feedbacks to climate: Integrating the right tools for the job. Eos 93:188-189. Richter, D.deB. and 19 co-authors. 2012. (invited) Evolution of a half-century of soil and ecosystem research at the Calhoun Experimental Forest, book chapter in press. Li, J., Ziegler, S.E., Lane, C., Billings, S.A. 2012. Warming-enhanced preferential mineralization of humified boreal forest soil organic matter: Interpretation of soil profiles along a climate transect using laboratory incubations. Journal of Geophysical Research – Biogeosciences, in press. Tiemann, L.K., Billings, S.A. 2012. Tracking C and N flows through microbial biomass with increased soil moisture variability. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 49:11-22. Grandy, A.S., J.M. Fraterrigo, S.A. Billings. Soil ecosystem resilience and recovery, in Wall, D.H., Bardgett, R.D., Behan-Pelletier, V., Herrick, J.E., Jones, H., Ritz, K., Six, J., Strong, D.R., and van der Putten, W.H. (2012). Soil Ecology and Ecosystem Services. Oxford University Press, UK. Billings, S.A., Phillips, N. 2011. (invited) Forest biogeochemistry and drought. In: Levia, D.F., Carlyle-Moses, D.E. and Tanaka, T. (Eds.), Forest Hydrology and Biogeochemistry: Synthesis of Past Research and Future Directions. Ecological Studies Series, No. 216, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany, pp. 581-597. Tiemann, L.K., Billings, S.A. 2011. Changes in variability of soil moisture alter microbial community C and N resource use. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 43:1837-1847. |
Drake, J., Gallet-Budynek, A. Hofmockel, K. Bernhardt, E. Billings, S.A., Jackson, R. Johnsen, K., Lichter, J., Phillips, R., McCarthy, H., Moore, D., McCormack, M.L. Palmroth, S. Oren, R., Pippen, J., Pritchard, S., Treseder, K., Schlesinger, W., DeLucia, E., Finzi, A. 2011. Increases in the flux of carbon belowground stimulate nitrogen uptake and sustain the long-term enhancement of forest productivity under elevated CO2. Ecology Letters 14:349-357, doi: 10.111/j.1461-0248.2011.01593.x.
Tiemann, L.K., Billings, S.A. 2011. Indirect effects of nitrogen amendments on organic substrate quality increase enzymatic activity driving decomposition in a mesic grassland. Ecosystems 14:234-247, doi:1-.1007/s10021-010-9406-6.
Ziegler, S.E., Billings, S.A. 2011. Soil nitrogen status as a regulator of carbon substrate flows through microbial communities with elevated CO2. Journal of Geophysical Research – Biogeosciences 116, G01011, doi:10.1029/2010JG001434.
Billings, S.A., Buddemeier, R.W., Richter, de B.D., van Oost, K., Bohling, G. 2010. A simple method for estimating the influence of eroding soil profiles on atmospheric CO2. Global Biogeochemical Cycles Vol. 24, GB2001, doi:10.1029/2009GB003560.
Billings, S.A., Lichter, J., Ziegler, S.E., Hungate, B.A., Richter, de B.D. 2010. A call to investigate drivers of soil organic matter retention vs. mineralization in a high CO2 world. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 42:665-668.
Smith, V., Sturm, B.S.M., deNoyelles, F. J., Billings, S.A. 2010. The ecology of algal biodiesel production. Trends in Ecology and Evolution in press.
Goedhart, C.M., Pataki, D.E., Billings, S.A. 2010. Seasonal variations in plant nitrogen relations and photosynthesis along a grassland to shrubland gradient in Owens Valley, California. Plant and Soil 327:213-223.
York, H.A., Billings, S.A. 2009. Stable-isotope analysis of diet in the short-tailed fruit bats (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae: Carollia). Journal of Mammalogy 90:1469-1477.
Billings, S.A. 2008. Biogeochemistry: Nitrous oxide in flux. Nature 456:888.
Billings, S.A., Richter, D. 2008. The science of global soil change: Networking for our future. Eos: Transactions of the American Geophysical Union 89:151.
Richter, D., Billings, S.A. 2008. Strengthening the world’s long-term soil research base. International Union of Soil Scientists Bulletin 112:10-12.
Lichter, J., Billings, S.A., Ziegler, S.E., Gaindh, D., Ryals, R., Finzi, A.C., Jackson, R.B., Stemmler, E.A., Schlesinger, W.H. 2008. Soil carbon sequestration in a pine forest after nine years of atmospheric CO2 enrichment. Global Change Biology 14:2910-2922. [This paper was selected as a research highlight by Nature Reports Climate Change 3:2.]
Pataki, D.E., Billings, S.A., Naumburg, E., Goedhart, C.M. 2008. Water sources and nitrogen relations of grasses and shrubs in phreatophytic communities of the Great Basin Desert. Journal of Arid Environments 72:1581–1593.
Tiemann, L., Billings, S.A. 2008. Carbon controls on nitrous oxide production with changes in substrate availability in a North American grassland. Soil Science 173:332–341.
Bijoor, N.S., Czimczik, C., Pataki, D., Billings, S.A. 2008. The effects of temperature and fertilization on nitrogen cycling and community composition of an urban lawn. Global Change Biology 14:2119–2131. [This paper was selected as a research highlight by Nature 454:670.]
Billings, S.A., Ziegler, S.E. 2008. Altered patterns of soil carbon substrate usage and heterotrophic respiration in a pine forest with elevated CO2 and N fertilization. Global Change Biology 14:1–12.
Haavik, L., Stephen, F., Fierke, M., Salisbury, V., Leavitt, S., Billings, S.A. 2008. Dendrochronological parameters of northern red oak (Quercus rubra Fagaceae) infested with red oak borer (Enapholodes rufulus (Haldeman) (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae)). Forest Ecology and Management 255:1501–1509.
Billings, S.A., Gaydess, E. 2008. Soil nitrogen and carbon dynamics in a fragmented landscape experiencing forest succession. Landscape Ecology 23:581–593.
Schaeffer, S.M., Billings, S.A., Evans, R.D. 2007. Laboratory incubations reveal potential responses of soil nitrogen cycling to changes in soil C and N availability in Mojave Desert soils exposed to elevated atmospheric CO2. Global Change Biology 13:854–865. [DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2007.01324.x]
(italics indicate students working under my supervision)