ZOE G. CARDON
Senior Scientist
Tel: 508-289-7473 | Fax: 508-457-1548
E-mail:
zcardon@mbl.edu
Ph.D., Stanford University, 1994
B.S. Biology, B.A. Spanish, Utah State University, 1988
Links: Full CV
Research Statement
My research group is interested in how interactions among organisms and soils shape, and are shaped by, terrestrial biogeochemistry. Our research emphasizes function at multiple scales, including micrometers (e.g., using living, bacterial microbiosensors in soil to examine conditions, availability of resources, and microbial growth rates), whole root systems and whole plants (e.g., examining stomatal behavior and carbon allocation patterns, and their implications for plant resource distribution and rhizosphere microbial activity), and natural and agro-ecosystems (e.g., determining how the size and dynamics of new and old soil carbon pools are influenced by elevated CO
2 or long-term agricultural techniques).
We also are interested in biodiversity of eukaryotic microbes in soils, specifically very diverse unicellular desert green algae that promise to contribute greatly to understanding of the evolution and ecology of advanced photosynthetic life on land (with collaborator Louise Lewis at UConn).
Finally, we are interested in technique development. Continuous measures of soil processes in ecosystems are very difficult to obtain, and common assays for quantifying steps in nitrogen cycling, for example, are core-based and destructive. We are designing new enzyme-based and fluorescence-based sensors (with collaborator Shawn Burdette, UConn) to continuously monitor pools of these compounds in situ in soil solution without destructive assays. And, with collaborator Dan Gage at UConn, we are also developing genetically engineered, living microbiosensors that can report, continuously, in situ in soil, conditions, availability of resources, and their own growth rates by producing light we can detect with microscopes or an astronomy camera.
Overall, we are driven to understand how biogeochemical cycles have dramatically affected, and been dramatically affected by, evolutionary changes in the anatomy and physiology of organisms on Earth, and by the ecological interplay of those organisms above- and below-ground in complex mutualisms, symbioses and food webs.
Recent publications:
Gage, D.J., Herron, P.M., Arango Pinedo, C., and Cardon, Z.G. 2008. Live reports from the soil grain – the promise and challenge of microbiosensors. Functional Ecology 22: 983-989.
Cardon, Z. G., D. W. Gray and L. A. Lewis. 2008. The green algal underground – evolutionary secrets of desert cells. Bioscience 58(2): 114-122.
Cardon, Z. G., and J. L. Whitbeck, J. L. (eds). 2007. The Rhizosphere: An Ecological Perspective. Elsevier.
Cardon, Z. G., and D. J. Gage. 2006. Resource exchange in the rhizosphere – molecular tools and the microbial perspective. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 37: 459-88.
Gartner, T. B., and Z. G. Cardon. 2004. Decomposition dynamics in mixed-species leaf litter — a review. Oikos 104: 230-246.
Cardon, Z. G., A. D. Czaja, J. L. Funk, and P. L. Vitt. 2002. Periodic carbon flushing to roots of Quercus rubra saplings affects soil respiration and rhizosphere microbial biomass. Oecologia 133: 215-223.
Cardon, Z. G., B. A. Hungate, C. A. Cambardella, F. S. Chapin III, C. B. Field, E. A. Holland, and H. A. Mooney. 2001. Contrasting effects of elevated CO2 on old and new soil carbon pools. Soil Biology and Biochemistry, 33: 365-373.
Cardon, Z. G., J. A. Berry, and I. E. Woodrow. 1994. Dependence of the extent and direction of average stomatal response in Zea mays and Phaseolus vulgaris on the frequency of fluctuations in environmental stimuli. Plant Physiology 105:1007-1013.
