Dr. Anne Hartley
Assistant Professor
Department of Environmental Studies
ECS 335, Florida International University
Miami, FL 33199
Phone: (305)348-1693
Fax: (305)348-6137
Email: Anne.Hartley@fiu.edu

Research Interests

The basic questions that underlie Dr. Hartley's research are: how are ecosystems altered by human activity and what are the mechanisms that determine ecosystem function? She uses a combination of approaches - field observations, experimental manipulations and simulation modeling to study plant and soil microbial processes in terrestrial ecosystems.

At Florida International University, Dr. Hartley is continuing to investigate global change issues and has expanded her focus to include ecological restoration. The restoration of hydrological flow in the Everglades is expected to transfer dissolved organic nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural areas and adjacent peat marshes into oligotrophic freshwater marshes. Dr. Hartley is initiating studies on the potential impacts of restored hydroperiods specifically increased phosphorus availability and lower salinities on microbial nitrogen transformation processes. The objectives are to improve estimates of nitrogen inputs to Everglades freshwater marshes, to determine the potential for restoration to promote microbial conversion of organic nitrogen to inorganic forms that can potentially alter marshes and coastal marine ecosystems dramatically, and finally to evaluate the extent to which Everglades marshes can absorb and process nitrogen, and thus buffer coastal marine environments from eutrophication.

2004 UNDERGRADUATE SUMMER RESEARCH OPPORTUNITY

Courses Taught

EVS 5320 Environmental Resource Management
EVS 4323 Restoration Ecology

In Fall 2004, NEW undergraduate course on Global Change Issues

Students

Currently recruiting students

Recent Publications

Hartley, A.E. and W.H. Schlesinger. 2000. Environmental controls on nitric oxide emission from northern Chihuahuan desert soils. Biogeochemistry 50:279-300.

Rustad, L.E., J. Campbell, G.M. Marion, R.J. Norby, M.J. Mitchell, A.E. Hartley, J.H.C. Cornelissen, J. Gurevitch and GCTE-NEWS, Network of Ecosystem Warming Studies. 2001. A meta-analysis of the response of soil respiration, net nitrogen mineralization and aboveground plant growth to experimental ecosystem warming. Oecologia 126: 243-262.

Cornelissen, J.H.C., T.V. Callaghan, J.M. Alatalo, A. Michelsen, E. Graglia, A.E. Hartley, D.S. Hik, S.E. Hobbie, M.C. Press, C.H. Robinson, G.H.R. Henry, G.R. Shaver, G.K. Phoenix, D. Gwynn Jones, S. Jonasson, F.S. Chapin III, U. Molau, C. Neill, J.A. Lee, J.M. Melillo, B. Sveinbjörnsson and R. Aerts. 2001. Global change and arctic ecosystems: is lichen decline a function of increases in vascular plant biomass? Journal of Ecology 89:984-994.

Hartley, A.E. and W.H. Schlesinger. 2002. Environmental controls on nitrogenase activity in biological crusts of the northern Chihuahuan desert. The Journal of Arid Environments 52(3): 293-304.

Hanson, P.J., J.S. Amthor, S. Wullschleger, K. Wilson, R. Grant, A.E. Hartley, E. Dafeng Hui, R. Hunt, Jr., D.W. Johnson, J. Kimball, A. King, Y. Luo, S. McNulty, G. Sun, P.E. Thornton, S. Wang, M. Williams and R.M. Cushmann. Carbon and water cycle simulations for an upland oak forest using 13 stand-level models: intermodel comparisons and evaluations against independent measurements. Submitted to Ecological Monographs.

Peters, H.A., N.R. Chiariello, H.A. Mooney, S. Levin and A.E. Hartley. The influence of harvester ants on plant community composition in a serpentine grassland. Submitted to Oecologia.

Activities

Biography

Dr. Hartley has an undergraduate degree in comparative economic systems from Smith College, a masters degree in Geographic Information Systems from Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and a Ph.D. in biogeochemistry from Duke University. As a NASA Global Change Fellow, Dr. Hartley studied potential environmental controls on soil nitrogen cycling specifically, nitrogen fixation in soil crusts and nitrogen trace gas emission from microbial activity - in the Chihuahuan desert of southern New Mexico. After her doctoral program, she spent two years as a postdoc in the Ecosystems Center studying the impact of elevated carbon dioxide and warming on plant growth and nutrient cycling in Swedish subarctic tundra. More recently, Dr. Hartley has investigated whether arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi provide grassland plants with access to different forms of nutrients. Fungal mutualisms may effectively create new resource niches for plants, providing a mechanism that could explain why high levels of plant diversity occur in some communities.