Dr. William H. Schlesinger
President
Biogeochemist
Ph.D., 1976, Cornell University

Throughout his career, Dr. Schlesinger has investigated the circulation of the chemical elements in natural ecosystems- a field now widely known as biogeochemistry. His work has focused on soils, especially on the carbon stored in soils, which contain a major pool in the global carbon cycle. He has provided global estimates of the storage of organic carbon (humus) and inorganic carbon (largely calcium carbonate) in soils, losses of soil carbon to runoff, changes in soil carbon with conversion of land to agriculture, and accumulations of carbon during soil development. More recently, he has examined changes in soils that will accompany plant growth at elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, as simulated in the Duke Forest Free-Air CO₂ Enrichment (FACE) experiment, and his work also evaluates carbon sequestration as a means to control the accumulation of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere to mitigate the potential for global warming.

Current Research

Evaluation of human impacts on total global denitrification.

Evaluation of the efficacy of carbon sequestration in soils and trees as a means to prevent global warming.

Ecofocus Articles

• Acid rain problem lingers
  
• Warmer winters not only effect of climate change
  
• To benefit the environment most, try a living tree
  
• Lessons from the Ozone Hole
  
• CO₂: A good thing- to a degree
  
• Even Older Forests Help Sequester CO₂
  
• There's no time to waste to stem warming trend

Selected Publications

• Schlesinger, W.H. 1977. Carbon balance in terrestrial detritus. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 8: 51-81.
• Schlesinger, W.H., J.F. Reynolds, G.L. Cunningham, L.F. Huenneke, W.M. Jarrell, R.A. Virginia, and W.G. Whitford. 1990. Biological feedbacks in global desertification. Science 247: 1043-1048.
• Schlesinger, W.H. 1997. Biogeochemistry: An Analysis of Global Change. 2nd ed. Academic Press, San Diego. 558 p. (Sixth printing, 2003; Spanish edition, 2000)
• Schlesinger, W.H. 2004. Better living through biogeochemistry. Ecology 85: 2402-2407. (Special feature).
• Lichter, J., S. H. Barron, C,E, Bevacqua, A.C. Finzi, K.F. Irving, E.A. Stemmler, and Schlesinger, W.H. 2005. Soil carbon sequestration and turnover in a pine forest after six years of atmospheric CO2 enrichment. Ecology 86: 1835-1847.