“All of us can benefit from interacting with people who look at the earth through a different lens.” “Collaborative relationships are exciting because they offer new possibilities for research and new directions and perspectives,” Morris says. They manipulated the amounts of DOC and ultraviolet light in several artificial enclosures, or mesocosms, to see how the two variables influence microbial food webs. He and his colleagues recently completed a large-scale study of the photobleaching of DOC at Lake Lacawac in northeastern Pennsylvania. Much of Morris’s research is collaborative. Undisturbed natural areas are rare in the northeastern United States, and Morris hopes to show how human activity has altered regional carbon dynamics since pre-Columbian times. Morris is also studying a virgin watershed in the Alan Seeger Natural Area in central Pennsylvania. Microbial food webs affected by DOC and UV light He has worked with the Rodale Institute’s experimental farm to study carbon sequestration and find out how different crops and agricultural practices influence the export of organic carbon. Morris says strong evidence suggests that human activity has accelerated the release of DOC into the atmosphere. That’s in part why we’re interested in what regulates the sequestration of that carbon.” Eventually, it reenters the atmosphere, where it behaves as a greenhouse gas.
“It enters the watershed and ends up in lakes and rivers.
“Organic carbon is fixed into plant material and stored in the soil,” says Morris, who is affiliated with the university’s STEPS (Science, Technology, Environment, Policy and Society) initiative. He studies carbon dynamics in small watersheds, focusing on the role of land use and landscape in regulating the release or sequestration of DOC. Morris, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences, is an aquatic ecosystem ecologist who studies the role of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in lakes, streams and rivers. Some scientists are seeking ways to sequester carbon by pumping it into large cavities miles below the surface of the earth.ĭonald Morris studies how lakes, rivers and other aquatic ecosystems absorb carbon dioxide (CO2). The other half is absorbed by oceans, watersheds and plants, as part of what’s known as “the carbon sink.” About half of the carbon emitted by human activity rises into the atmosphere, where it helps contribute to global warming.