Chicago Botanic Garden

Plant Science — OUR SCIENTISTS

PHOTO: Jianwu TangJianwu (Jim) Tang, Ph.D.

Environmental Science,
PotashCorp Fellow in Soil Science
Adjunct assistant professor of Biological Sciences
at Northwestern University

Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 2003


PUBLICATIONS
phone (847) 242-6322


Research Interests

I am interested in interdisciplinary research in soil-plant-atmosphere interactions, soil ecology, and global change ecology. I use observational, experimental, and modeling approaches to understand the impact of climate change on below ground and aboveground ecosystem functions and processes, and the feedback of terrestrial ecosystems to climate change. The processes and components include carbon, water and energy exchange between soil, plants and the atmosphere; soil decomposition; plant respiration; photosynthesis; and transpiration. Currently my research focuses on soil carbon and nitrogen dynamics.

My research helps to fill current knowledge gaps in climate change and carbon cycles, and inform climate change policies. Global warming and climate change are primarily induced by human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases, which destroy the delicate balance of carbon cycles between ecosystems and the atmosphere. Currently terrestrial ecosystems absorb approximately 120 Pg C (120 billion metric tons) per year through photosynthesis, and return to the atmosphere at approximately 119 Pg C per year through respiration. These numbers are much larger than human emissions (5-6 Pg C per year) through burning gasoline, coal and other fossil fuels. My research will enhance our ability to develop models to forecast future trends in carbon cycles and climate change, and develop methods to fix more carbon in ecosystems (carbon sequestration), particularly in soils, since soil is the largest terrestrial carbon pool, three times that of carbon stored in plants.


Current Projects

My current projects address the following questions:

  • What are the effects of prairie restoration on carbon stocks and fluxes, compared with the native prairie remnant, cropland, and urban turf?
  • What are the effects of invasive species in native woodlands on carbon stocks and fluxes?
  • What is the impact of ongoing climate change (warming and changing precipitation patterns) on carbon stocks, fluxes and species composition in the restored prairie and invaded woodland?
  • How shall we modify the target of ecological restoration (such as restoration of native prairie and woodland), given the changes in ecosystems with current climate change, and what is the feedback of restoration to climate change?

 

Peer-reviewed publications

2006

Tang, J., P. V. Bolstad, A. R. Desai, J. G. Martin, B. D. Cook, K. J. Davis, E. V. Carey, 2006. Ecosystem respiration and its components in an old-growth forest in the Great Lakes region of the United States. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology (in press).

Tang, J., P.V. Bolstad, B.E. Ewers, A.R. Desai, K.J. Davis, E.V. Carey, 2006. Sap-flux- upscaled canopy transpiration, stomatal conductance and water use efficiency in an old-growth forest in the Great Lakes region of United States. Journal of Geophysical Research – Biogeosciences, 111, G02009, doi:10.1029/2005JG000083.

Baldocchi, D.D., J. Tang, L. Xu, 2006. How lags, pulses and switches in biophysical regulators affect spatio-temporal variation of soil respiration in an oak-grass savanna. Journal of Geophysical Research – Biogeosciences, 111, G02008, doi:10.1029/2005JG000063.

Ewers, B.E., D. S. Mackay, J. Tang, P. Bolstad, S. Samanta. 2006. Intercomparison of sugar maple stand transpiration responses to environmental conditions from the western Great Lakes Region of the United States. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology (in press).

Desai, A.R., A.N. Noormets, P.V. Bolstad, J. Chen, B.D. Cook, P.V. Curtis, K.J. Davis, E.S. Euskirchen, C. Gough, J.M. Martin, D.M. Ricciuto, H.P. Schmid, H. Su, J. Tang, C. Vogel, W. Wang, 2006. Influence of vegetation type, stand age and climate on carbon dioxide fluxes across the Upper Midwest, USA: Implications for regional scaling of carbon flux. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology (in press).

Misson, L., A. Gershenson, J. Tang, R. Boniello, M. McKay, W. Cheng, A. Goldstein, 2006. Influence of canopy photosynthesis and rain pulses on root dynamics and soil respiration in a young ponderosa pine forest. Tree Physiology, 26, 833-844.

2005

Tang, J., L. Misson, A. Gershenson, W. Cheng, A. Goldstein, 2005. Continuous measurements of soil respiration with and without roots in a ponderosa pine plantation in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 132, 212-227.

Tang J., D. D. Baldocchi, L. Xu, 2005. Tree photosynthesis modulates soil respiration on a diurnal time scale. Global Change Biology, 11, 1298-1304. (Highlighted by "Faculty of 1000 Biology" as "New Finding.")

Tang, J., D. D. Baldocchi, 2005. Spatial-temporal variation of soil respiration in an oak-grass savanna ecosystem in California and its partitioning into autotrophic and heterotrophic components. Biogeochemistry, 73, 183-207.

Tang, J., Y. Qi, M. Xu, L. Misson and A. Goldstein, 2005. Forest thinning and soil respiration in a ponderosa pine plantation in the Sierra Nevada. Tree Physiology, 25, 57-66.

Misson L., J. Tang, M. Xu, M. McKay, A. Goldstein, 2005. Influences of recovery from clear-cut, climate variability, and thinning on the carbon and energy balance of a young ponderosa pine plantation. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 130, 207-222.

2004

Xu, L., D. D. Baldocchi, J. Tang, 2004. How soil moisture, rain pulses and growth alter the response of ecosystem respiration to temperature. Global Biogeochemical Cycles,18, GB4002, doi:10.1029/2004GB002281.

2003

Tang, J., D. D. Baldocchi, Y. Qi, and L. Xu, 2003. Assessing soil CO2 efflux using continuous measurements of CO2 within the soil profile with small solid-state sensors. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 118, 207-220.

 

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