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to the Menge lab website!
Research in our lab bridges ecosystem ecology, biogeochemistry, global change science, and evolutionary ecology. We are located in the E3B department at Columbia University. The Menge lab is committed to diversity and inclusivity. Please click on the links above to learn more about who we are and what we do. |
Tundra in the sundra: Fundra in the tundra: Wonder in the tunder: Tunder after thunder: Isobel and Phoebe give Jessie moral support: Nutrient cycling in action: Day 5 of sorting roots: Root sample? Work of art? Post-pluck blues: Forest chores in Ecosystem Ecology and Global Change: Black Rock wildlife: We embrace both important elements, Nitrogen and Mitrogen: Red fox in the Brooks Range: Vanessa elbow deep in tundra: Musk ox herd at 69 deg. N: Alder nodules at treeline in Northern Alaska: Vanessa, Duncan, Shahid, and Kevin heading to Toolik: Ayanna sampling streams in Puerto Rico: Ayanna in the lab in Puerto Rico: Most of the lab group in spring 2022: The lab group in spring 2022, mostly in the same place: A lab group meeting during March 2020: Unloading roots in Manhattan: The belowground team celebrates: Class weighing aboveground biomass: Aria pioneers a new protocol: Palani sneaks a soil slider: (He followed it with a shot of boot juice) "Should I let the scientists live?" Puerto Rico field work: Andrew cores: Ben brings shame upon the lab: Sian is a fan of Volcano: Hawaii's a rough place to work: The nene are concerned about greenhouse gas fluxes: This seemed more repeatable than having Palani stand on Amy: Alex measuring NO gas in Tanguro ... or is she? Alex tells the calcium carbide how it is: Tom, clearly doing science: October Black Rock field work: Sian loves sampling gas: Andr�s and Rachel measuring Robinia height: Rachel's audition shot for Ghostbusters: Gas sampling at Black Rock: Pentaclethra nodules: Ben, happy that his plants were alive so he could kill them: Richard, one with local fauna: Amy hard at work: Ben and Richard hard at work: Some nice Waiakea dirt: Rachel fertilizing greenhouse plants: Setting up the Black Rock site for the N fixation strategies project: Black Rock 2013-2014: Ben measures Taylor's bh. Nodules! |
News December 2024: Jessie successfully defended her dissertation proposal. Congrats Candidate Motes! November 2024: Isobel placed 2nd in the President's Prize (student talk award) at the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America. Congrats! November 2024: Patrick passed his oral exam - congrats! November 2024: Alex has joined the lab as a technician. Welcome! October 2024: Midterm exams marked the middle of Theoretical Ecology and Fundamentals of Ecology. September 2024: Isobel started her Ph.D. Welcome back! September 2024: Nico arrived in NYC and started his M.A. degree. Welcome! September 2024: Paper out showing that nitrogen from fixation has the same effect on biomass allocation as soil nitrogen in plant seedlings. Menge et al. 2024. August 2024: Savannah C's paper on forest structure in Ucayali, Peru is out in Ecology and Evolution: Cooley et al. 2024. Congrats! July 2024: Savannah K, Jessie, Isobel, Nico, Duncan, and 20 of their closest colleagues harvested a fertilization gradient experiment at Toolik. A huge team effort and a great success! June 2024: QQ has moved on from the lab to begin a Ph.D. at B.U. Good luck! May 2024: Ayanna successfully defended her dissertation proposal, so is now a Ph.D. candidate. Congrats! May 2024: Jocelyn finished her senior thesis. Congrats! May 2024: Tamia finished her senior thesis. Congrats! May 2024: Sonja finished her senior thesis. Congrats! April 2024: Patrick is off to Belgium to work with colleagues before heading to the DRC for summer field work. April 2024: Eva was awarded a GSAS Teaching Scholarship for next year. Congrats! April 2024: A new M.A. student, Nico, accepted an offer to start in the Menge lab in fall 2024. Welcome in advance! April 2024: A new Ph.D. student (but former M.A. student), Isobel, accepted an offer to start in the Menge lab in fall 2024. Welcome back! April 2024: Aria was awarded a Columbia Incite grant to support her work in Black Rock. She's on a roll! March 2024: Aria was awarded another Black Rock Forest David Redden Small Grant to fund her work in Black Rock. Congrats! March 2024: Aria was awarded a Provost's Diversity Fellow Small Grant for her work in Black Rock. Congrats! March 2024: Ayanna was awarded a Provost's Diversity Fellow Small Grant for her work in Puerto Rico. Congrats! February 2024: Jessie, Savannah K, and Duncan attended and helped host the ARC LTER meeting. February 2024: Aria successfully defended her dissertation proposal, so is now a Ph.D. candidate. Congrats! January 2024: Duncan starts teaching out graduate course Fundamentals of Ecology for the eighth time. December 2023: Patrick got a CARN ASPIRE grant to support his PhD research. Congrats! November 2023: Patrick got a FluxNet Secondment grant to support his work with colleagues in Belgium. Congrats! November 2023: Tom's paper on the leaf economics of nitrogen-fixing vs. non-fixing plants is out in Journal of Ecology. Bytnerowicz et al. 2023 Congrats! November 2023: Our AREES paper on climate effects on the terrestrial phosphorus cycle is out. Menge et al. 2023. November 2023: Ecosystem ecology class field trip to Black Rock Forest #4. We collected more leaf litter. October 2023: Ecosystem ecology class field trip to Black Rock Forest #3. We collected lots of leaf litter and cored more trees. September 2023: Ecosystem ecology class field trip to Black Rock Forest #2. Wet weather and minimal wildlife. We collected some foliage and leaf litter and cored a lot of trees. September 2023: Ecosystem ecology class field trip to Aria's sites in Black Rock Forest #1. Great weather and lots of wildlife (see pictures to the left). September 2023: Palani gave an excellent exit talk. Congrats! September 2023: Savannah K has joined as a technician on the ARC LTER. She started at Toolik in the summer, but starts at Columbia now. Welcome! September 2023: Palani has rejoined our lab as a postdoc/Frontiers of Science Fellow. Welcome back! August 2023: Columbia Magazine ran an article on Black Rock Forest that highlighted some of the lab's work, among other excellent E3B work. Aria's work featured prominently. August 2023: Our review paper on the responses of terrestrial phosphorus cycling to climate change is out in AREES: Menge et al. 2023. August 2023: Aria's paper quantifying allometric relationships of nitrogen-fixing and non-fixing tree species is out in PLoS ONE: Carreras Pereira et al. 2023. Congrats! August 2023: Aria, Savannah, Vanessa, Ayanna, and Eva gave excellent talks at ESA in Portland, as did many lab alumni. Duncan also gave a talk. Great to see everyone there! July 2023: The lab has spread out for summer field work: Vanessa and Jessie in Alaska, Aria in New York, Ayanna in Puerto Rico, and Patrick in DR Congo. July 2023: Isobel's paper showing nitrogen fixation activity in Ceruchus piceus beetles in Black Rock Forest is out in Environmental Entomology: Mifsud et al. 2023. Congrats! June 2023: Sian accepted a position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Dalhousie University. Congratulations! June 2023: Palani's paper showing variation in soil inorganic nitrogen pools and fluxes over small spatial scales is out in Biogeochemistry: Akana et al. 2023. Congrats! May 2023: Jessie passed her oral exam - congrats! May 2023: Ayanna passed her oral exam - congrats! May 2023: Alex accepted a position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences at the University of Delaware. Congratulations! April 2023: Vanessa went to DC to meet lawmakers as part of the ESA Graduate Student Policy Award. April 2023: Duncan, Sian, and Ben went to Fort Collins for the second meeting of the USGS nitrogen fixation synthesis group. April 2023: Vanessa received a Katherine McCarter Graduate Student Policy Award from ESA. Congrats! March 2023: Ayanna got honorable mention for the NSF GRFP. Congrats! March 2023: Aria was awarded a David Redden Conservation Science Fund grant for her work at Black Rock Forest. Congrats! March 2023: Vanessa, Emma, Jessie, QQ, and Duncan attended the ARC LTER annual meeting. It was great to learn and talk about cool Arctic science! February 2024: Savannah successfully defended her dissertation proposal, so is now a PhD candidate. Congrats! February 2023: Emily's paper showing that symbiotic nitrogen fixation did not stimulate soil phosphatase activity is out in Oecologia. Jager et al. 2023. Congrats! January 2023: Colleen's paper showing that understory symbioses sustain N fixation, particularly at high light, is out in Journal of Ecology: Schmidt et al. 2023. Congrats! December 2022: Paper out in Ecological Monographs showing that tree symbioses sustain nitrogen fixation despite excess nitrogen supply. Menge, Wolf et al. 2023. November 2022: Emma had a letter to the editor published in the New York Times: Lauterbach 2022. Congrats! October 2022: Aria passed her oral exam - congrats! October 2022: Alex's perennial wheat paper is out! Huddell et al. 2023. Congrats! October 2022: Andrew's hurricane paper is out! Quebbeman et al. 2022. Congrats! October 2022: Alex's paper showing that perennial wheat nearly eliminates nitrate leaching compared to conventional wheat was accepted in Science of the Total Environment. Congrats! September 2022: Andrew's paper showing that hurricane Maria caused elevated greenhouse gas emissions from soils in Puerto Rico, was accepted in Ecosystems. Congrats! September 2022: Jessie and Patrick have arrived and started their PhDs. Welcome! August 2022: Ayanna and Vanessa gave talks at ESA. Their first talks at national meetings! Former lab members Tom and Amy also gave talks on collaborative work. Congrats all! August 2022: QQ (Yu-Qing) joined the lab as a technician. Welcome! August 2022: Brandon has moved on from the lab to start a Masters degree at Yale. Good luck! August 2022: Palani has a paper out in Oecologia on foliar vs soil nutrient trends along steep gradients of water availability. Akana et al. 2022. Congrats! July 2022: New paper led by Peter Vitousek was accepted into Biogeochemistry. The paper extends previous theory on causes of nitrogen limitation. Out soon. July 2022: Tom's Nature Plants paper received honorable mention for the ESA Biogeosciences section's 2022 Elizabeth Sulzman Award. Congrats! June 2022: Vanessa was awarded a Sigma Xi grant to support her summer work in Toolik. Congrats! June 2022: Tom's Nature Plants paper received honorable mention for the ESA Early Career section's 2022 Outstanding Publication Award. Congrats! June 2022: Summer is upon us, and the lab is covering lots of biomes. Vanessa, Duncan, and Emma L are in the Arctic (Alaska); Ayanna is in the tropics (Puerto Rico); and Aria, Emma Z, Brandon, Eva, and Savannah are in the temperate regions (the wilds of the SchX greenhouse and Lamont). May 2022: Big congratulations to Palani, who successfully defended his dissertation! May 2022: Alex won E3B's 2022 Don Jay Melnick Award, which recognizes outstanding dissertation work and other departmental activities. Congrats! May 2022: Alex's paper "Anion exchange capacity explains deep soil nitrate accumulation in Brazilian Amazon croplands" just came out in Ecosystems. Congrats! April 2022: Savannah's paper "Convergence in water use efficiency within plant functional types across contrasting climates" just came out in Nature Plants. Congrats! April 2022: Vanessa was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! Congratulations! March 2022: A new Ph.D. student, Patrick, accepted an offer to start in the Menge lab in fall 2022. Welcome in advance! March 2022: Tom et al.'s paper in Nature Plants was highlighted by a News & Views piece: Wang & Houlton 2022. March 2022: Savannah passed her oral exam. Congrats! February 2022: A new Ph.D. student, Jessie, accepted an offer to start in the Menge lab in fall 2022. Welcome in advance! February 2022: Alex's paper on anion exchange capacity in Brazilian croplands was accepted in Ecosystems. Congrats! February 2022: Tom et al.'s paper on temperature responses of symbiotic N fixation is out in Nature Plants. Bytnerowicz et al. 2022. Congrats! January 2022: Savannah had a paper on the convergence of water use efficiency across contrasting climates accepted in Nature Plants. Congrats! January 2022: Brandon has joined the lab. Welcome! December 2021: Tom, along with Palani, Kevin, and Duncan, had a paper on temperature responses of symbiotic N fixation accepted in Nature Plants. Congrats! November 2021: We had a productive if remote Powell group meeting. October 2021: Emma has joined the lab. Welcome! September 2021: Ayanna and Vanessa have arrived and started grad school. Welcome! August 2021: Tom has a paper out in Am Nat about successional trends of symbiotic nitrogen-fixing trees in the USA. Bytnerowicz & Menge 2021. July 2021: Along with co-PI Kevin Griffin, Duncan received funding from NSF to study the temperature sensitivity of symbiotic nitrogen fixation and its carbon cost. July 2021: Andrew has a paper out in Ecosystems showing that greenhouse gas fluxes from soils in Luquillo, Puerto Rico vary with topography and species. Quebbeman et al. 2021. June 2021: Isobel and Palani gave great talks on their work at the 12th Biennial Hudson Highlands Research Symposium. June 2021: Sian won E3B's 2021 Don Jay Melnick Award, which recognizes outstanding dissertation work and other departmental activities. Congrats! June 2021: Sian has a paper out in Biogeosciences demonstrating a new representation of N fixation in GFDL's land model. Kou-Giesbrecht et al. 2021. May 2021: Sian has a(nother) paper out in Ecology showing that N-fixing trees increase soil emissions of nitrous oxide. Kou-Giesbrecht & Menge 2021. May 2021: Sian has a paper out in Ecology showing that N-fixing trees can drive cooling or heating relative to non-fixing trees, depending on N supply. Kou-Giesbrecht et al. 2021. May 2021: Ben's last paper from his PhD is out in New Phytologist. Taylor & Menge 2021. May 2021: Alex has a paper out in Agrosystems, Geosciences, and Environment showing that fertilizing soybean-maize stimulates emissions of N2O and particularly NO. Huddell et al. 2021. April 2021: A new M.A. student, Vanessa, accepted an offer to start in the Menge lab in fall 2021. Welcome in advance! April 2021: Alex has accepted an EPA Postdoctoral Fellowship with the Long Island Sound Study. Congrats! April 2021: Anika has accepted an NSF Innovative Postdoctoral Entrepreneurial Fellowship to work as the Lead System Scientist at Lotic Labs. Congrats! April 2021: Sian has accepted a postdoc at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis. Congrats! April 2021: Ben was awarded the Jasper Loftus-Hills Award from the American Society of Naturalists. Congrats! March 2021: Sian gave an outstanding exit talk! March 2021: Big congratulations to Alex, who successfully defended her dissertation! March 2021: Aria got honorable mention for the NSF GRFP. Congrats! February 2021: Big congratulations to Sian, who successfully defended her dissertation! February 2021: Anika gave a fantastic exit talk! February 2021: A new Ph.D. student, Ayanna, accepted an offer to start in the Menge lab in fall 2021. Welcome in advance! February 2021: Big congratulations to Anika, who successfully defended her dissertation! February 2021: Tom won E3B's 2020 Don Jay Melnick Award, which recognizes outstanding dissertation work and other departmental activities. Congrats! January 2021: Andrew gave an excellent exit talk. Congrats Dr. Quebbeman! December 2020: Colleen was quoted in the New York Times, related to her co-authored piece that rebuts climate doomism. December 2020: Tom gave the lab's and department's first remote exit talk. Congrats! November 2020: An election happened. October 2020: Anika, along with Sian, Ben, and Duncan, has a new paper out in Journal of Ecology showing that nitrogen-fixing trees have no net effect on forest growth in the USA. Staccone et al. 2020. September 2020: Aria and Savannah have started their PhDs. Welcome! August 2020: Congratulations to Anika, who won honorable mention for the Elizabeth Sulzman Award (ESA Biogeosciences student paper award) for her GBC paper! August 2020: Sian, Palani, Alex, and Duncan, along with a few lab alums, are all "giving talks" at ESA in silico. July 2020: The pandemic continues. July 2020: Palani was awarded a research grant from Sigma Xi. Congratulations! June 2020: Big congratulations to Andrew, who successfully defended his dissertation! June 2020: Palani was awarded summer research funding from Black Rock Forest. Congratulations! June 2020: Isobel was awarded summer research funding from Black Rock Forest. Congratulations! May 2020: Tom has accepted a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship to work with Amy Wolf and Caroline Farrior at UT Austin. Congrats! April 2020: Sian published a piece in the ESA Bulletin: Asian Americans: The Forgotten Minority in Ecology. Congrats! April 2020: Big congratulations to Tom, who successfully defended his dissertation! April 2020: Two new Ph.D. students, Aria and Savannah, accepted offers to start in the Menge lab in fall 2020. Welcome in advance! April 2020: Our lab, like the rest of the world, has gone remote. This called for a picture of our lab meeting across 4 time zones (see above). March 2020: Alex's Global Change Biology paper got some media attention. February 2020: Anika has a new paper out in Global Biogeochemical Cycles mapping tree-based symbiotic nitrogen fixation across the USA. Staccone et al. 2020. January 2020: Alex has a new paper out in Global Change Biology showing that nitrogen fertilization in tropical agroecosystems leads to similarly high nitrogen losses as in their temperate counterparts. Huddell et al. 2020. January 2020: Anika, Ben, and Duncan are at the first meeting of our Powell Center group on synthesizing terrestrial nitrogen fixation. January 2020: Duncan was honored with a Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award, which recognizes excellence in mentoring and teaching. December 2019: Isobel joined the lab. Welcome! December 2019: Duncan's and Tom's presentations at AGU were in a great session organized by the INCyTe crew. November 2019: Palani successfully defended his dissertation proposal, so is now a candidate. Congratulations! October 2019: We harvested full aboveground and belowground biomass of our trees from the Black Rock Forest site of our NSF-funded experiment. September 2019: For the fourth iteration of Ecosystem Ecology and Global Change we are integrating the research project with our NSF-funded experiment at Black Rock August 2019: Ben accepted a position as an Assistant Professor in the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Department at Harvard. Congratulations! August 2019: Lex, Amy, and Duncan gave talks at the ESA meeting in Louisville. July 2019: A huge welcome to two new lab babies born a few days apart! The Menge lab is delighted to have welcomed five new babies in our six year existence. June 2019: Back from an excellent INCyTE meeting in Missoula. Many thanks to Cory, Fiona, Sasha, and Will for organizing it and to all the participants for great discussions! May 2019: New paper out in Journal of Ecology that shows low abundance of nitrogen-fixing trees even at low latitudes in Asia. Menge et al. 2019. May 2019: New paper out in Scientific Reports that shows high rates of symbiotic N fixation in mature forests in Trinidad. Brookshire et al. 2019. April 2019: Tom has a new paper out in Methods in Ecology and Evolution that develops a method for measuring nitrogenase activity and carbon exchange in potted plants. Bytnerowicz et al. 2019. April 2019: Sian has a new paper out in Nature Communications showing that nitrogen-fixing trees could exacerbate climate change. Kou-Giesbrecht & Menge 2019. March 2019: New paper led by Ben Sulman out in Global Biogeochemical Cycles showing that plant-microbial symbioses have a large impact on terrestrial carbon storage. Sulman et al. 2019. February 2019: Ben has a new paper out in Ecology showing the successional dynamics of nitrogen fixation in regenerating Costa Rican rainforests. Taylor et al. 2019. January 2019: Sian has a new paper out in Evolutionary Ecology Research showing no clear tradeoff between natural and sexual selection in guppies. de Lira et al. 2018. January 2019: Great field trip to our Hawaii sites with Amy and Jen. December 2018: Sian successfully defended her dissertation proposal, so is now a candidate. Congratulations! November 2018: Anika successfully defended her dissertation proposal, so is now a candidate. Congratulations! November 2018: Palani passed his oral exam - congratulations! November 2018: Megan has a new paper out in Oikos showing that nitrogen-fixing plants tend to have larger seeds than non-fixing plants. Wilcots et al. 2018. October 2018: Oreoluwa, Colleen, and Lynn have joined the lab. Welcome! September 2018: Lex and John have joined the lab. Welcome! August 2018: Amy accepted a position as an Assistant Professor in the Integrative Biology Department at UT Austin. Congratulations! August 2018: Ben has a new paper out in Nature Plants showing that nitrogen fixation in Pentaclethra macroloba nodules responds more to light than soil nitrogen. Taylor & Menge 2018. August 2018: New paper out in Ecology responding to a critique of our 2013 paper. Menge & Menge 2018. August 2018: New paper out in Ecology Letters showing that intraspecific variation can facilitate species coexistence in a spatially heterogeneous habitat. Uriarte & Menge 2018. August 2018: Palani, Amy, Andrew, Anika, Ben, Sian, Wenying, and Tom gave great presentations at ESA in New Orleans. July 2018: New paper out in Nature Ecology and Evolution showing that many ecologists misunderstand data presented on log scales. Menge et al. 2018. With blog post and additional advice. June 2018: New paper out in Nature Ecology and Evolution showing successional and climatic trends of legumes (and nitrogen-fixing legumes) in Neotropical forests. Gei et al. 2018. June 2018: Amy's paper on the relationship between stress and competition is out online in Ecology. Tang et al. 2018. Congrats! May 2018: Ben won the E3B department's Ph.D. Dissertation Award! Congratulations! May 2018: Along with co-PIs Steve Perakis, Sasha Reed, and Chris Clark, Duncan had a Powell Center working group funded to synthesize terrestrial nitrogen fixation rates and drivers. May 2018: Duncan was promoted to Associate Professor. May 2018: Duncan has agreed to be the new Director of Graduate Studies in E3B. May 2018: A new M.A. student, Lex, accepted an offer to start in the Menge lab in fall 2018. Welcome in advance! May 2018: Duncan was awarded a Lenfest Junior Faculty Development Grant for work on the interaction between light availability and nitrogen fixation. May 2018: Alex successfully defended her dissertation proposal, so is now a candidate. Congratulations! April 2018: Alex was offered research funding from NSF-GROW - congratulations! April 2018: Alex passed her oral exam - congratulations! April 2018: Palani was chosen to be a Lead Teaching Fellow for next year - congrats! April 2018: Sian passed her oral exam - congratulations! April 2018: Palani was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! Congratulations! April 2018: Megan was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! Congratulations! April 2018: Ben has accepted a postdoctoral fellowship to work with Kim La Pierre at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center - congratulations! April 2018: Alex was offered research funding from NSF-GRIP - congratulations! April 2018: Palani received summer travel funding from ILAS - congrats! April 2018: Ben was awarded the OTS student paper award for his 2017 PNAS paper - congratulations! March 2018: Big congratulations to Ben, the inaugural Menge lab PhD student, who successfully defended his dissertation! March 2018: Anika passed her oral exam - congratulations! March 2018: Andrew's work with Maria, Jaz, and others investigating how Hurricane Maria affects forests in Puerto Rico was featured in the New York Times. February 2018: Megan is headed to the University of Minnesota for a Ph.D. next year - congrats! February 2018: Ben was quoted in a piece about soil carbon. January 2018: More press for Ben's PNAS paper. January 2018: Alex is off to Brazil for fieldwork. The rest of us are jealous. December 2017: Another great ecosystem ecology class finished. October 2017: Ben's PNAS paper was highlighted in IFL Science. October 2017: New paper out online in Ecology with new hypotheses for the latitudinal gradient of nitrogen-fixing trees. Menge et al. 2017. September 2017: Science wrote a nice blurb about Ben's PNAS paper: Nitrogen-fixing trees: Friend or foe? September 2017: Palani and Emily have arrived at Columbia. Welcome! August 2017: Anika, Sian, Andrew, Ben, Wenying, Alex, Amy, and Tom gave great presentations at ESA in Portland. July 2017: Ben's paper showing that nitrogen-fixing trees inhibit the regeneration of Costa Rican forests is out in PNAS. Congrats! Taylor et al. 2017. July 2017: Here's a nice Columbia news piece about Amy's PNAS paper. July 2017: Paper out in Ecology Letters showing that nitrogen-fixing trees have similar relative diversity across latitude in North America. Menge et al. 2017. June 2017: Amy, Sian, Palani, and Duncan had a successful field trip to Hawaii, despite the best efforts of the pigs. June 2017: Paper on rhizosphere priming, plant N demand, and different mycorrhizal types out online in Ecology Letters. Sulman et al. 2017. May 2017: Sian was awarded research funding from Sigma Xi. Congratulations! May 2017: Wenying's paper showing that nitrogen-fixing trees are likely to become more abundant in much of North America as it warms is out online in Global Change Biology. Congrats! Liao et al. 2017. May 2017: Paper out online in Ecology Letters showing that nitrogen-fixing trees have similar relative diversity across latitude in North America. Menge et al. 2017. May 2017: Tom successfully defended his proposal, so is now officially a PhD candidate. Congratulations! April 2017: A new M.A. student, Emily, accepted an offer to start in the Menge lab in fall 2017. Welcome in advance! April 2017: Andrew successfully defended his proposal, so is now officially a PhD candidate. Congratulations! April 2017: Paper showing that nitrogen-fixing trees have similar relative diversity across latitude in North America accepted by Ecology Letters. Menge, Batterman, Liao, Taylor, Lichstein, & �ngeles-P�rez, coming soon. April 2017: Andrew and Ben received summer travel funding from ILAS - congrats! April 2017: Ben has been selected as one of six Graduate Student Policy Award winners by the Ecological Society of America. Congratulations! April 2017: Paper showing that spatial heterogeneity can drive persistent and concurrent nitrogen fixation and nitrogen richness is out in Ecology. Menge & Levin 2017. March 2017: A new Ph.D. student, Palani, accepted an offer to start in the Menge lab in fall 2017. Welcome in advance! March 2017: Sian was awarded an NSERC Fellowship! Congratulations! March 2017: Anika was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! Congratulations! March 2017: Ben was awarded a grant from the Garden Club of America to support his work in Costa Rica - congratulations! March 2017: Amy's paper on flowering phenology and biodiversity loss is out online. Wolf et al. 2017. Congrats! See press coverage at Scientific American and Science et Vie. March 2017: Wenying's paper showing that nitrogen-fixing trees are likely to become more abundant in much of North America as it warms has been accepted by Global Change Biology. Congratulations! Liao et al. 2017, coming soon. February 2017: Amy's paper on how flowering phenology shifts with biodiversity loss has been accepted by PNAS. Congratulations! Wolf et al. 2017, coming soon. January 2017: Paper accepted by Ecology showing that spatial heterogeneity can drive persistent and concurrent nitrogen fixation and nitrogen richness. Menge & Levin 2017. January 2017: Ben, Efrat, and Duncan's organized oral session on "Linking terrestrial nitrogen fixation, element cycling, and biodiversity in a changing world" was accepted by ESA, and we're really excited about the lineup of speakers. See you in Portland in August! January 2017: Many thanks to everyone who completed our survey on data presentation in ecology, and to ESA for helping distribute it! December 2016: Amy's paper (Wolf et al. 2017) published along with a nice commentary by Sasha Reed: Reed 2017. December 2016: Andrew passed his orals - congratulations! December 2016: A paper by Ben, Rachel, Wenying, and many friends of the lab on Hamamelis virginiana growth and physiology following canopy disturbance is out in Canadian Journal of Forest Research. Congrats! Taylor et al. 2016. November 2016: Amy's paper showing flexible stoichiometry and a symbiont effect on legume stoichiometry is out in New Phytologist. Congratulations! Wolf et al. 2017. November 2016: Kaye and Elsie have joined the lab. Welcome! November 2016: Tom passed his orals - congratulations! October 2016: Wenying's paper showing that survival, growth, and recruitment disadvantages all help explain the rarity of nitrogen-fixing trees in the USA is published by PLoS ONE. Congratulations! Liao & Menge 2016. September 2016: Andr�s, Emily, Connor, and Eleanor started working in the lab. Welcome! August 2016: Sian, Alex, and Anika have arrived at Columbia. Welcome! August 2016: A paper by Ben, Rachel, Wenying, and many friends of the lab on Hamamelis virginiana growth and physiology following canopy disturbance was accepted by Canadian Journal of Forest Research. Congrats! Taylor et al. 2016. August 2016: Ben mentored two REU students at La Selva. August 2016: Tom, Ben, and Duncan gave talks on Tuesday at the annual ESA meeting in Ft. Lauderdale. July 2016: Tansley Insight paper published by New Phytologist showing that evolutionary constraints are unlikely to explain the rarity of nitrogen-fixing trees in high latitude forests. Menge & Crews 2016. June 2016: Ashley and John have joined us for the summer. Welcome! June 2016: Amy's paper on linking functional traits to competition is published online at Ecology. Funk & Wolf 2016. May 2016: Tansley Insight paper accepted by New Phytologist showing that evolutionary constraints are unlikely to explain the rarity of nitrogen-fixing trees in high latitude forests. Menge & Crews, coming soon. April 2016: Tom was awarded an EPA STAR fellowship - congrats! April 2016: Alex was awarded an NSF GRFP fellowship - congrats! March 2016: Three new Ph.D. students, Anika, Sian, and Alex, accepted offers to start in the Menge lab in fall 2016. Welcome in advance! March 2016: Tom and Rachel are in Hawaii. I think they're working, but it is spring break in Hawaii. March 2016: Duncan gave a seminar at the University of Georgia. Good pilgrimage to the Odum School, where ecology reigns supreme. February 2016: Anna and Kayley started working in the lab - welcome! February 2016: Duncan gave a seminar at the University of Florida. Great opportunity to catch up with some people and meet some new people, all of whom are doing great work. January 2016: A good time of year for tropical field work. Amy and Rachel were in Waiakea, Hawaii, and Ben and Richard were in La Selva, Costa Rica. January 2016: Paper published by New Phytologist on the demographic rates of N-fixing vs non-fixing trees in long-term Bosques plots at La Selva. Menge & Chazdon 2016. See also a nice commentary by Tim Crews: Crews 2016. December 2015: Duncan received a Lenfest Junior Faculty Development Grant to study greenhouse gas fluxes in our N fixation strategies project at Black Rock. November 2015: Ben, Richard, and Megan received funding from the Earth Institute for field work in Costa Rica. Congrats! November 2015: Ben successfully defended his proposal, so is now officially a PhD candidate. Congratulations! October 2015: Kevin Griffin's ecophysiology class took lots of physiological measurements at our Black Rock N fixation strategy sites. October 2015: Duncan gave a seminar at Bennington College. Great to meet lots of broad thinkers and see the beautiful campus. September 2015: Emily and Emily started working in the lab - welcome! August 2015: Andrew, Ben, Wenying, Amy, and Duncan gave talks at the annual ESA meeting in Baltimore. July 2015: Amy and Ben's paper on stoichiometry along nutrient gradients is out in Oikos. Sistla et al. 2015. Congrats! June 2015: Rachel, Alex, and Duncan attended and gave talks at the Black Rock Forest Highlands Symposium. Lots of fun to see all the cool stuff people are doing at BRF. June 2015: Paper out in Nature Plants about an experiment showing diverse nitrogen fixation strategies. Menge, Wolf, & Funk 2015. Coverage at Science Daily, EurekAlert, & AgProfessional. May 2015: Wenying graduated - congrats! May 2015: Along with co-PIs Jen Funk and Steve Perakis, Duncan received funding from NSF Ecosystems to evaluate nitrogen fixation strategies in a variety of tree species. April 2015: Amy, Wenying, Andrew, Ben, and Duncan will be giving talks at ESA this summer. Hope to see you there! April 2015: Tom got honorable mention for the NSF GRFP. Congrats! April 2015: Andrew got summer funding from ILAS! Congrats! April 2015: Ben got summer funding from ILAS! Congrats! April 2015: Ben's new paper on seedling survival on Dominica is online at Biotropica. DeWalt, Taylor, & Ickes, available online. April 2015: Amy is the Menge lab's first postdoc! Welcome! February 2015: Paper accepted by Theoretical Ecology on alternative stable states in grasslands. Chisholm, Menge, Fung, Williams & Levin 2015, available online. December 2014: Ben got research funding from Sigma Xi! Congratulations! November 2014: Duncan gave a seminar at McGill University. Lots of people doing very cool work there. November 2014: Ben's new paper on global change effects on root architecture at the Duke FACE site is out in New Phytologist. Beidler, Taylor, et al. 2014. October 2014: Ben's new paper on seed removal by red-rumped agoutis on the island of Dominica is out in Caribbean Journal of Science. Congrats! September 2014: Rachel arrives in NYC and starts in the Menge lab. Welcome! August 2014: Tom arrives in NYC. Welcome! August 2014: Wenying and Duncan gave talks at the annual ESA meeting in Sacramento. August 2014: Ben's new paper on root dynamics at the Duke FACE site is out online at Tree Physiology. Taylor et al. 2014. July 2014: Paper out in Ecology about the latitudinal gradient of N-fixing tree abundance. Menge, Lichstein, & Angeles-Perez 2014. June 2014: Essay out in the ESA Bulletin's "Paper Trail" series. Menge 2014. June 2014: Emily and Franklin began summer internships. Welcome! April 2014: Wenying got summer research funding from Sigma Xi! Congratulations! April 2014: Ben got summer funding from ILAS! Congrats! April 2014: Tom's paper on modeling temperature effects on seed germination of Zannichellia palustris is out in Environmental and Experimental Botany. Bytnerowicz & Carruthers 2014. April 2014: Duncan gave a seminar at Cornell University. Nice to meet the dynamic group there and learn about their work. March 2014: Two new Ph.D. students, Tom and Andrew, accepted offers to start in the Menge lab in fall 2014. Welcome in advance! February 2014: Ben's paper on responses of mycorrhizal root tips to global change manipulations in the Duke forest is out online in Global Change Biology. Pritchard, Taylor et al. 2014. February 2014: Duncan gave a seminar in Brown University's EEB department. It was nice getting to meet the great people there and hear about all the cool stuff they're doing. January 2014: Welcome to Kealoha, who's visiting the Menge lab this semester from Brown! December 2013: Bruce and Duncan's Intermittent Upwelling Hypothesis paper has been recommended on Faculty of 1000. December 2013: Duncan talked at AGU about some uses of nitrogen isotopes in ecosystem ecology. November 2013: First lab field trip to Black Rock Forest. A fine time was had by all despite the snow. Pictures to the left. October 2013: Ben's paper on scaling of minirhizotron data is out in Plant and Soil. Taylor, Beidler, Strand, & Pritchard 2013. October 2013: Welcome to Andrew! September 2013: Welcome to Elizabeth and Taylor! September 2013: Fall semester begins, bringing the maiden voyage of the course Ecosystem Ecology and Global Change. August 2013: Wenying arrives in NY. Welcome! August 2013: Duncan arrives in NY. Let the science begin. August 2013: Paper out in Ecological Monographs about the Intermittent Upwelling Hypothesis. Menge & Menge 2013. July 2013: Welcome Ben, the first Menge lab Ph.D. student, who arrived before the Menge lab. June 2013: Duncan has been named an Early Career Fellow of the Ecological Society of America for 2013-2017. June 2013: Ben's paper on root sampling is out in Ecology Letters. Taylor, Beidler, Cooper, Strand, & Pritchard 2013. May 2013: Paper out in PTRS-B reviewing and proposing a new global estimate of terrestrial biological nitrogen fixation. Vitousek, Menge, Reed, & Cleveland 2013. May 2013: Author Spotlight in PLoS focused on 2012 PLoS ONE paper by Menge, Hedin, & Pacala. April 2013: Duncan, along with co-authors Lars Hedin and Steve Pacala, receives Outstanding Ecological Theory Paper Award from ESA's Theory Section for 2012 paper on long-term ecosystem development. |