Bowden’s Research on Soil Science Featured in Several Publications

Professor of Environmental Science Richard Bowden co-authored a paper, “Twenty Years of Litter and Root Manipulations in a Temperate Deciduous Forest: Insights into Soil Organic Matter Dynamics and Stability,” in a special edition of the Soil Science Society of America Journal. The work, conducted at the Harvard Forest Long-Term Experimental Research Site, found that these soils increase soil C very slowly, and thus intact forests cannot be manipulated easily to increase the ability of soil to help reduce global warming pollution. The work was also featured in the article “Insights into Soil Organic Matter Dynamics and Stability in a Temperate Deciduous Forest” published in CSA News, the official magazine for members of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America. Bowden also co-authored “Detritus Inputs & Forest Soil Organic Matter Formation: Is There a Linear Relationship Between Detrital Input Rates and Soil Carbon Accumulation?” which was delivered at the 2014 meeting of the Annual Meeting of the Soil Science Society of America. The presentation, which described results of field experiments conducted for 10-50 years in Massachusetts, Oregon, Wisconsin, Michigan, Hungary, and Allegheny’s Bousson forest, shows that soils are slow to store atmospheric carbon pollution but are vulnerable to disturbances that can release stored carbon into the atmosphere.