Lang DeLancey
Research Q & A
How did you get started/what drew you to your area of study?
I’ve always loved the outdoors in general, and temperate forests in particular. I grew up camping, canoeing, and picking mushrooms in the Northwoods of Michigan. During college, this love of the outdoors was connected with my curiosity for how things work by an ecosystem ecology class. I became enthralled with the idea that we can track and explain the so many of the complexities and behaviors of ecosystems by looking at a few key elements (e.g. C, N, P). This, naturally, lead to me think about the ecosystems I grew up with in this new light. While doing some forest-ecology field work in northern Michigan, I fell in love with the soil: how it underpins all life, how it affects and is affected by plants and microbes, and how it is always underfoot, yet we know so little about it. I also discovered that the fungi I had grown up finding and eating were critical not only to the forests I loved, but also the whole planet’s climate.
Why are you focusing your work in that area?
Soils are the largest terrestrially active pool of C (holding twice as much C as the atmosphere and vegetation combined). This makes them critical to the global C cycle and therefore the climate system and even small changes in C storage can have huge implications for ongoing anthropogenic climate change. While we know that fung play a role in these cycles, we are only now beginning to realize just important they are for soil C storage, and how little we know about the different controls and pathways through which they act. These uncertainties make it very difficult to predict how the climate will keep changing and how critical ecosystem processes (such as soil fertility or plant growth) will respond.
What are you currently working on (as supported by the award)?
The award has gone to support a project examining how plant-mutualist (mycorrhizal) fungi interact with free-living, decomposer fungi to influence soil C storage. In particular, I am testing long-held but never before tested assumptions about how these plant-associated fungi impact the amount of C stored in soil and how long it is stored.
Where are you working on research/ field work?
The work covered by this award is at the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, located on Dakota and Anishinaabe land in East Bethel, MN.
What would be the 5 song soundtrack to your research work/What 5 songs do you listen to most while you work?
- Speed the Plough – Bigfoot Stringband
- Down the Wagon Way/Sweet Jayne/The North Downs Way – Chris Wood & Andy Cutting
- The Northwest Passage – Stan Rogers
- Blue Night Oberon – Magic Toaster
- Little Satchel – Fred Cockerham
