Sanober Mirza on her honor’s thesis research:
For my honor’s thesis research, I worked with Professor Erika Marin-Spiotta in the Biogeography-Biogeochemistry Lab. We sought to understand how human activity, specifically deforestation and pasture usage, affects nitrogen cycling in post-disturbance forest regeneration. We collected soils in August 2017 and January 2018. We incubated these soils as well as measured their net mineralization and nitrification rates, and used existing data on N-fixing tree species at our sites. We found that there was an age effect on mineralization and nitrification rates. Our study was important because we helped quantify tropical secondary forest recovery with implications for land-management practices.
