William J Pritchard

The seasonal coupling of plant and soil microbial nutrient demands is crucial for efficient ecosystem nutrient cycling and plant production, especially in strongly seasonal alpine ecosystems. Yet, how these seasonal...

Climate change is disproportionately impacting mountain ecosystems, leading to large reductions in winter snow cover, earlier spring snowmelt and widespread shrub expansion into alpine grasslands. Yet, the combined effects of...

Soil microbial communities regulate global biogeochemical cycles and respond rapidly to changing environmental conditions. However, understanding how soil microbial communities respond to climate change, and how this influences biogeochemical cycles,...

Maternal effects (i.e. trans-generational plasticity) and soil legacies generated by drought and plant diversity can affect plant performance and alter nutrient cycling and plant community dynamics. However, the relative importance...

The use of plant traits to predict ecosystem functions has been gaining growing attention. Above-ground plant traits, such as leaf nitrogen (N) content and specific leaf area (SLA), have been...

Feedbacks between plants and soil microbial communities play an important role in vegetation dynamics, but the underlying mechanisms remain unresolved. Here, we show that the diversity of putative pathogenic, mycorrhizal,...

There are numerous ways in which plants can influence the composition of soil communities. However, it remains unclear whether information on plant community attributes, including taxonomic, phylogenetic, or trait-based composition,...

Oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) contain the largest pools of oceanic methane but its origin and fate are poorly understood. High-resolution (<15 m) water column profiles revealed a 300 m thick...