Dr. Colin Bell research home page
I completed my Ph.D. at Texas Tech University. My research interests include soil microbial taxonomic and functional responses to climate variability. My long-term research efforts include soil microbial responses to increased precipitation variability in the Chihuahuan desert grasslands in BBNP. I have also conducted long-term studies in agroecosystems in the Texas High Plains in order to assess crop-sustainability issues regarding soil-functional responses to different cropping-management practices. My more recent efforts have focused on understanding how changes in precipitation may offset the C-balance of Piñon-Juniper woodlands in the northern Chihuahuan Desert region at the Sevilleta LTER site. I am currently working at the NREL at CSU on microbial dynamics in response to climate change treatments at the prairie heating and elevated CO2 experimental site in Wyoming. The goal of the project is to characterize the effects of elevated temperatures and atmospheric CO2 on the metabolic and physiological characteristics of rhizosphere-associated microbes and plant communities in the mixed grass prairie.