Emily S. Bernhardt
Assistant Professor

660-7318

3313 French Family Science Building

Bernhardt Lab

Research Interests: ecosystem ecology and biogeochemistry

I am broadly interested in the capacity of ecosystems to retain nutrients and energy, particularly in the face of human accelerated environmental change. My research primarily focuses on controls of carbon and nitrogen cycling in streams and soils. While the majority of my research to date has taken place in aquatic systems, I think about biogeochemistry in a watershed context and am working in riparian and upland soils as well as stream channels in my current research. Most recently I have grown interested in taking advantage of large scale river restoration projects to understand how stream and riparian ecosystems function.

Current projects: 1. Potential for the recovery of biogeochemical function in degraded stream ecosystems, 2. Effects of Elevated CO2 on Root and Rhizosphere carbon and nitrogen cycling , 3. Thermodynamic and hydrologic controls over biogeochemical fluxes in floodplain landscapes, 4. Form, Function and Fate of Dissolved Organic Nitrogen in stream ecosystems

Representative Publications   (More Publications)   (search)

1. Bernhardt, E.S. and M.A. Palmer, Restoring streams in urbanizing landscapes, Freshwater Biology, vol. 52 (2007), pp. 738-751 .
2. Bernhardt, E.S., J. Barber, J.S. Pippen, L.A. Taneva, J. Andrews, and W.H. Schlesinger, Long-term effects of free air CO2 enrichment (FACE) on soil respiration, Biogeochemistry, vol. 77 (2006), pp. 91-116 .
3. Bernhardt, E.S., G.E. Likens, R.O. Hall, Jr., D.C. Buso, S.G. Fisher, T.M. Burton, J.L. Meyer, W.H. McDowell, M.S. Mayer, W.B. Bowden, S.E.G. Findlay, K.H. Macneale, R.S. Stelzer, W.H. Lowe, Can’t See the Forest for the Stream? The capacity of instream processing to modify terrestrial nitrogen exports., BioScience, vol. 52 (2005), pp. 219-230 .
4. Bernhardt, E.S., M.A. Palmer, J.D.Allan, G.Alexander, K. Barnas, S. Brooks, J. Carr, S. Clayton, C. Dahm, J. Follstad-Shah, D. Galat, S. Gloss, P. Goodwin, D. Hart, B. Hassett, R. Jenkinson, S.Katz, G.M.Kondolf, P. S. Lake, R. Lave, J. L.Meyer, T.K. O’Don, Synthesizing U.S. River Restoration Efforts, Science, vol. 308 (2005), pp. 636-637 [636] .
5. Bernhardt, E.S., G.E. Likens, D.C. Buso, and C.T. Driscoll., Instream uptake dampens the effect of major disturbance on watershed nitrogen export, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, vol. 100 no. 18 (2003), pp. 10304-10308 .