CHRISTOPHER NEILL

Associate Scientist

Tel: 508-289-7481 | Fax: 508-457-1548
E-mail: cneill@mbl.edu

Ph.D. University of Massachusetts Amherst 1992
M.S. University of Massachusetts Amherst 1988
B.S. Cornell University 1980

Links: Full CV

Research Statement:
I try to understand how changes in land use and other human activities alter the structure of ecosystems. Several of my research projects investigate the ecological consequences of deforestation of the world’s largest tropical rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon. I study how deforestation changes the way water and dissolved and particulate materials move from land to water and within channels of streams and rivers. I also examine how forest clearing alters the rates of cycling of soil nutrients and organic matter and the emissions of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides from soils to the atmosphere. My research group uses comparisons of gauged catchments, natural abundance of stable isotopes and field stable isotope additions, and paired hydrological and hydrochemical measurements. I also work on the ecology and restoration of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in coastal Massachusetts, where rapid increases in residential development threaten ecosystems that contain high and unique biological diversity. With colleagues at MBL and at The Nature Conservancy, I conduct large-scale management experiments that examine the effects of treatments, such as clearing or burning on these disturbance-dependent coastal sandplain grasslands and shrublands. In 2007 we initiated a new experiment to test methods for restoring old farmland to sandplain grassland on Martha’s Vineyard. I also study the ecology of coastal plain ponds, which harbor particularly high plant diversity along their shorelines.

Current Ph.D. student in Brown-MBL program:

Shelby Hayhoe

Recent Publications:

2007. McHorney, R. M. and C. Neill. Alteration of water levels in a Massachusetts coastal plain pond subject to municipal ground water withdrawals. Wetlands 27:366-380.

2007. Neill, C. The challenge of managing disturbance regimes, terrestrial communities and rare species in a suburbanizing region: the Northeastern U.S. coastal sandplain. Biological Conservation 136: 1-3.

FULL PUBLICATIONS LIST >>>