Richard Lankau
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Ecology & Evolution
Healthy soils and healthy trees depend on microbes, especially fungi that live on and in tree roots. Farming can disrupt these partnerships, and climate stress tests them.
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Plant Science & Agriculture
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
soil microbial ecology
soil biodiversity
soil food webs
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Dec 2030
What they work on
- Track how soil microbial communities and food webs develop on Midwestern farmland after farming stops or agroforestry begins, comparing sites with different times since abandonment and restoration practices.
- Test how coupled soil carbon and nitrogen cycling respond to the different soil community states created by agricultural legacies and restoration practices.
- Develop and pilot tree nursery conditions that promote beneficial root microbes, to improve seedling establishment on former agricultural land.
- Test how microbial communities from cold, hot or dry locations improve tree seedling stress tolerance by measuring seedling shape, physiology and gene expression under controlled stress experiments.
- Test with tree nurseries whether promoting fungal partnerships improves seedling survival after outplanting, and keep mapping root-fungal associations across eastern forests with a volunteer sampling program.
More about the research
Two projects ask how soil microbial communities recover on former farmland and how microbes from different places help trees tolerate cold, heat and drought. Both turn their findings into practical tools for tree nurseries and reforestation.
Why it matters
Restoration practitioners, agroforestry farmers and tree nurseries could gain quantifiable targets for soil biodiversity and function. They could also gain new propagation methods that pair seedlings with helpful microbes. This could improve tree survival on retired Midwestern farmland and in reforestation under heat, cold and drought, and could help soils store more carbon.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Frank Jones
Oregon State University, OR·Ecology & Evolution
Test whether feedback between adult trees and same-species seedlings shifts from negative to positive as drought and nutrient stress increase, mediated by fungal pathogens and mutualists.
Sara Baer
University of Kansas, KS·Ecology & Evolution
Model how climate conditions during the planting year steer the long-term trajectory of restored grassland plant communities, using species composition data from restorations established every other year over twelve years in one agricultural field.
Georgia Seyfried
Oregon State University, OR·Ecology & Evolution
Characterize interactions among regenerating vegetation, soil fertility and microbial communities after single high-severity fires and short-interval reburns in wet western Cascade conifer forests, using field surveys.
The school
University of Wisconsin-Madison: 91 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 854 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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