
Richard J. Norby
I am an ecosystem ecologist interested in
• Effects of CO2 enrichment on tree growth and forest metabolism
• Ecosystem responses to atmospheric and climatic change
• Carbon and nitrogen cycling in diverse ecosystems
• Forest tree physiology and plant physiological ecology
• Synthesis of experimental results to inform models
Research Fellow Emeritus
Environmental Sciences Division & Climate Change Science Institute
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Research Professor
Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
& Bredesen Center
University of Tennessee
Honorary Professor
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Birmingham
Editor
New Phytologist
Trustee
New Phytologist Foundation
New publications:
Moutinho S. 2022. Testing the resilience of the Amazon. Eos, 103, 10.1029/2022EO220525. Published on 10 November 2022.
Norby RJ, Grzesik RT, Crockatt M, Jones A, Loader NJ, Barba J, Mayoral C, MacKenzie AR. 2021. Tree Growth in an Oak Woodland Exposed to Elevated Atmospheric CO2. American Geophysical Union annual meeting, New Orleans LA, December 2021. Poster (updated with new graphs on 24 January 2022)
Norby RJ, Warren JM, Iversen CM, Childs J, Jawdy SS, Walker AP. 2022. Forest stand and canopy development unaltered by 12 years of CO2 enrichment. Tree Physiology 42: 428-440. 10.1093/treephys/tpab107.
Norby RJ. 2021. Comment on “Increased growing-season productivity drives earlier autumn leaf senescence in temperate trees”. Science 371: eabg1438. 10.1126/science.abg1438.
Cabugao KG, Yaffar D, Stenson N, Childs J, Phillips J, Mayes MA, Yang X, Weston DJ, Norby RJ. 2021. Bringing function to structure: Root-soil interactions shaping phosphatase activity throughout a soil profile in Puerto Rico. Ecology and Evolution 11:1150-116. 10.1002/ece3.7036
Yaffar D, Defrenne CE, Cabugao KG, Kivlin SN, Childs J, Carvajal N, Norby RJ. 2021.Trade-offs in phosphorus acquisition strategies of five common tree species in a tropical forest of Puerto Rico. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. 10.3389/ffgc.2021.698191
Yaffar D, Wood TE, Reed SC, Branoff BL, Cavaleri MA, Norby RJ. 2021.Experimental warming and its legacy effects on root dynamics following two hurricane disturbances in a wet tropical forest. Global Change Biology 27: 6423-6435. 10.1111/gcb.15870
Recent projects include:
Free Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) experiment (link)
Norby RJ, Warren JM, Iversen CM, Medlyn BE, McMurtrie RE. 2010. CO2 enhancement of forest productivity constrained by limited nitrogen availability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107: 19368-19373. 10.1073/pnas.1006463107
FACE Model-Data Synthesis (link)
Walker AP, De Kauwe MG, Medlyn BE, Zaehle S, Iversen CM, Asao S, Guenet B, Harper A, Hickler T, Hungate BA, Jain AK, Luo Y, Lu X, Lu M, Luus K, Megonigal JP, Oren R, Ryan E, Shu S, Talhelm A, Wang Y-P, Warren JM, Werner C, Xia J, Yang B, Zak DR, Norby RJ. 2019. Decadal biomass increment in early secondary succession woody ecosystems is increased by CO2 enrichment. Nature Communications 10: 454. 10.1038/s41467-019-08348-1
AmazonFACE Experiment (link)
Cordeiro AL, Norby RJ, Andersen KM, Valverde-Barrantes O, Fuchslueger L, Oblitas E, Hartley IP, Iversen CM, Goncalves NB, Takeshi B, Lapola DM, Quesada CA.2020. Fine-root dynamics vary with soil depth and precipitation in a low nutrient tropical forest in the Central Amazonia. Plant-Environment Interactions 1:3-16. 10.1002/pei3.10010
Root-Soil interface in Puerto Rico, part of NGEE-Tropics (link)
Cabugao KG, Yaffar D, Stenson N, Childs J, Phillips J, Mayes MA, Yang X, Weston DJ, Norby RJ. 2021. Bringing function to structure: Root-soil interactions shaping phosphatase activity throughout a soil profile in Puerto Rico. Ecology and Evolution 11: 1150-1164, 10.1002/ece3.7036
Yaffar D, Norby RJ. A historical and comparative review of 50 years of root data collection in Puerto Rico. Biotropica 52: 563-576. 10.1111/btp.12771
Sphagnum research at SPRUCE experiment (link)
Norby RJ, Childs J, Hanson PJ, Warren JM. 2019. Rapid loss of an ecosystem engineer: Sphagnum decline in an experimentally warmed bog. Ecology and Evolution 9:12571-12585. 10.1002/ece3.5722.
Contact: RNorby at utk.edu