Research

Our research focuses on soil microbial ecology

Major themes include:

What factors determine the composition of soil microbial communities?

How do microbial community structure and microbial growth kinetics affect biogeochemical processes and the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems?

How do climate change, invasive plants and other anthropogenic disturbances impact the structure and function of soil microbial communities, and how do these microbial responses feed back to ecosystem and global processes?

The Lipson lab is part of the Center for Climate and Sustainability Studies (C2S2), one of the Areas of Excellence established at SDSU in 2014.

Most of our work is in Arctic, Alpine and Mediterranean-type ecosystems

(see Research Menu to view posts in these categories)

Aerial view of Arctic Coastal Plain near Barrow, AK
Arctic ecosystems

(click here for the Bog Blog, researcher experiences in Barrow, Alaska)

The Saddle, Niwot Ridge, Front Range of the Colorado Rocky Montains
Alpine ecosystems
Coastal Sage Scrub ecosystem at Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve
Coastal Sage Scrub ecosystems
Free Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) experiment at Sky Oaks Field Station
Chaparral Ecosystems