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Alan Townsend

Fellow and Associate Director of INSTAAR; Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Univ. of Colorado at Boulder.

Ph.D., Stanford University, 1994.

Alan.Townsend@colorado.edu
(303) 492-6865

INSTAAR Directorate Members

Speciality: Biogeochemistry/ecosystem ecology.

Research Interests: Carbon and nitrogen dynamics at regional to global scales; phosphorus controls over C and N in moist tropical systems; nutrient controls over soil carbon storage; human health effects of a changing N cycle. See lab web site (http://ibl.colorado.edu) for more detailed information.

Selected Awards and Activities: Director, North American Nitrogen Center; 2001 Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow; Co-Director (with Jim White) Carbon, Climate and Society Initiative; Ecological Society of America Visions Committee; ESA Rapid Response Team; Chair, ESA Biogeosciences Section; Associate Editor for Ecological Applications.

Selected Publications:

  • Townsend, A.R., C.C. Cleveland, G.P.Asner and M.M.C. Bustamante. 2007. Controls over foliar N:P ratios in tropical forests.  Ecology, in press.
  • Townsend, A.R., R.W. Howarth and L.A. Martinelli. 2007.  The changing nitrogen cycle, biodiversity and human health.  In, Biodiversity and Human Health, O. Sala and C. Parmesan eds., SCOPE Rapid Assessment Program (in press).
  • Reed, S.C., C.C. Cleveland and A.R. Townsend.  2007. Climate and nutrient regulation of free- living N-fixation in a lowland tropical forest.  Biotropica, in press.
  • Cleveland, C. C. and A. R. Townsend. 2006. Nitrogen and phosphorus additions cause substantial losses of soil carbon from a lowland tropical rain forest. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103(27):10,316-10,321.
  • Cleveland, C.C.,  S.C. Reed and A.R. Townsend.  2006. Nutrient regulation of organic matter decomposition in a tropical rain forest. Ecology 87: 492-503.
  • Bern, C.B., A.R. Townsend and G.L. Farmer. 2005. Unexpected dominance of parent-material strontium in a tropical forest on highly weathered soils.  Ecology, 86(3):626-632.
  • Palmer, M.A., E. Bernhardt, E. Chornesky, S.L. Collins, A. Dobson, C. Duke, B. Gold, R. Jacobson, S. Kingsland, R. Kranz, M. Mappin, M. L. Martinez, F. Micheli, J.L. Morse, M. Pace, M. Pascual, S. Palumbi, J. Reichman, W.H. Schlesinger, A. Townsend, and M. G. Turner. 2004. Ecology for a Crowded Planet.  Science 304:1251-1253.
  • Seastedt, T.R., W.D. Bowman, D. McKnight, A.R. Townsend and M. Williams. 2004. The Landscape Continuum: A Conceptual Model for High Elevation Ecosystems. BioScience, 54 (2): 111-121.
  • Townsend, A. R., R. W. Howarth , F. A. Bazzaz , M. S. Booth , C. C. Cleveland , S. K. Collinge , A. P. Dobson , P. R. Epstein, E. A. Holland , D. R. Keeney , M. A. Mallin , P. Wayne and A. Wolfe. 2003. Human health effects of a changing global nitrogen cycle. Frontiers in Ecology 1(5): 240-246.
  • Townsend, A.R., G.P. Asner, C.C. Cleveland, M.E. Lefer and M. M. C. Bustamante. 2002. Unexpected changes in soil phosphorus dynamics following tropical deforestation to cattle pasture. Journal of Geophysical Research,VOL. 107, NO. D20, 8067.
  • Townsend, A.R., G.P. Asner, P.P. Tans and J.W. C. White. 2002. Tropical land use effects on atmospheric 13C imply a sizable terrestrial carbon sink in equatorial latitudes. Geophysical Research Letters,VOL. 29, NO. 10, 10.1029.
  • Neff, J.C., A.R. Townsend, G. Gleixner, S.J. Lehman, J. Turnbull and W.D. Bowman. 2002. Variable effects of nitrogen additions on the stability and turnover of organic carbon. Nature, 419: 915-917.
See Also:

http://instaar.colorado.edu/people/bios/townsend.html
Copyright © 2003 INSTAAR, Univ. of Colorado