Check out the most recent issue of UH’s Research and Innovation magazine and to learn about how scientists at UH are addressing climate change.  Our work on microbial responses to climate change is highlighted.  And, stay tuned  to learn more about what we discover with our project!

It has been a busy time in the Crawford Lab, sorry for the lack of updates! But, we have gotten a lot done in the meantime….

…Including harvesting a collaborative project with Christine Hawkes that tested how historic precipitation influenced intraspecific plant-soil feedback. There were some interesting findings, so keep an eye out for a new paper coming soon!

…We established our big project on dune restoration funded by the Texas Sea Grant! Thankfully, the weather was cloudy and a little rainy to keep us cool as we manually moved over 25 tons of sand into these 60 pots. In the pots, we planted two grasses primarily used in restoration projects on Galveston Island. Half of the pots received inoculum that contained soil microbes from the dunes in Galveston. We are testing how plant diversity and soil microbes influence initial plant establishment, soil development, and the diversity of colonizing native plant species.

…The lab came together to help Anna finish up a big project that is testing how climate change influences plant-soil feedback in coastal prairies.

…Anna and Kerri were also able to head over to Sunny Florida for ESA, where Kerri presented a talk on plant soil feedback.

…We were lucky enough to have Ph.D. student Maya Reese join us in lab for a semester. Maya did a rotation in our lab testing how plant plant diversity indirectly influences future plant performance through changes in soil microbial communities. Luckily, Maya is only a floor away from us, so we can still get to hang out!

…A new graduate student joined us on our road to scientific discovery! Hannah Locke, who taught science with Teach for America is joined our lab in Fall 2016 as a Ph.D. student! (Photo cred to Lyle Hawthorne).

…We also got a whole new team of undergraduate research assistants to help us with our research! With their many helping hands, our projects are moving forward and new discoveries are being made. For more information, please check out our “Lab Members” page!

Just because we haven’t updated in a while doesn’t mean that we weren’t busy!  Some highlights from the past few months:

Heather Slinn joined us as a lab technician for the summer.  She helped out with tons of experiments and taught us a bunch about Canada while our other Canadian, Yash, was in India. Heather left at the end of summer to start her PhD research at the University of Nevada – Reno.

We set up lots of new experiments over the summer. We even tried playing slot games at www.kingcasino.com and we enjoyed it very much. This one is testing how precipitation influences intraspecific plant-soil feedback.

We collected data from our long-term experimental garden in Michigan.  During one of our trips, Kerri presented her research to the public to help celebrate the National Park Service’s centennial.

We also celebrated the Ecological Society of America’s centennial at the annual meeting in Baltimore.  Anna and Kerri presented their work and ate some delicious crab cakes.

We did some field work closer to home, at the University of Houston’s Coastal Center.  Here’s the crew after digging up some dirt for Anna’s experiment.  At the right is our new lab tech, Michelle!

To celebrate Michelle’s arrival and help kick-off the semester, we had a lab party at Fearshire Farms! Despite the best efforts of the chainsaw-weilding madmen in the haunted house and cornmaze, we all made it back alive.

Summer is almost here, which means we are starting field work.  This week, Anna and I were in Michigan surveying the experiment at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.  It was still a little chilly up there, but we had a few sunny days of work.