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Ralph E.J. Boerner

Professor

Room 240E Jennings Hall

1735 Neil Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210

Phone: 614-292-6179

Fax: 614-292-2030

E-mail: boerner.1@osu.edu

Education: M. Ph., Ph.D. Rutgers University
M.S. Adelphi University
B.S. SUNY College at Cortland

Brief Description of Research Interests

Ecosystem and Soil Ecology

Detailed Research Interests

My research interests focus on ecosystem and landscape level analyses of forested regions in the north and south temperate zones, with special emphasis on the impacts of atmospheric deposition, management, fire, and landscape structure on the interchanges of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus among soils, plants, animals, and microbes. Techniques of plant ecophysiology, soil chemistry and biochemistry, and community analysis are currently being used to evaluate the impact of dormant season fire on oak-hickory forests in southern Ohio and North Carolina, and on mixed conifer forests in South Carolina and northern California. Combinations of fire and thinning are being used to assess the efficacy of such management methods for restoring these forest ecosystems from the long term impacts of both atmospheric deposition and fire suppression. In addition, studies of the spatial dependency of belowground resources (e.g. organic C, inorganic N), organisms (mycorrhizal fungi, microbial biomass, microarthropods) and processes (N mineralization, nitrification) are being carried out in a number of northern ecosystem types using geostatistical techniques. These studies are designed to test the emerging view that most environmental characteristics are not randomly and/or normally distributed.

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Key Citations

Boerner, R.E.J., J. Huang, and S.C.Hart. 2008. Fire, thinning, and the carbon economy: effects of the FFS treatments on carbon storage and sequestration rate. Forest Ecology and Management 255: 3081-3097. doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2007.11.021

Huang, J. and R.E.J. Boerner. 2008. Shifts in plant morphological traits and seed production following prescribed fire alone or in combination with forest canopy thinning. Botany (formerly Canadian Journal of Botany) 86: 376-384.

Boerner, R.E.J., J. Huang, and S.C. Hart. 2008. Impacts of fire and fire surrogate treatments on forest soil properties: a meta-analytical approach. Ecological Applications (special feature), in press.

Miesel, J.R., R.E.J. Boerner, C.N. Skinner. 2008. Mechanical restoration of California mixed conifer forests: Does it matter which trees are cut? Restoration Ecology: in press.

Courses

EEOB 413: Introduction to Ecology
EEOB 720: Community Ecology and Ecosystems (with Maria Miriti)
BIO H116: Honors' Biology II
BIO 101: Basic Biology
EEOB 881: Ecology of the Americas Before Columbus