Katalin Szlavecz

About

Katalin Szlavecz is a Research Professor in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. She earned her PhD from Eotvos University in Hungary. Her research includes the study of the diversity and ecology of soil invertebrates, soil biogeochemical cycling, urban ecosystems, and invasive species. She is a Co-Principal Investigator of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study Long Term Ecological Research (LTER), a research associate at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, and a collaborator at the USDA Beltsville Agricultural Research Center Farming Systems Project. Her work focuses on belowground carbon dynamics in altered precipitation patterns in Mid-Atlantic deciduous forests, the impact of earthworm invasions on soil ecosystems, and interactions between earthworms, soil organic matter, fungi, and tree seedlings. Szlavecz's research also encompasses urban soils and soil biota, and she is involved in the Global Urban Soil Ecology and Educational Network (GLUSEEN) and the use of wireless sensors in soil ecology.

Research topics

• Ecology
• Biology
• Geography
• Environmental chemistry
• Biochemistry
• Chemistry
• Environmental science
• Organic chemistry
• Fishery

Selected publications

• Global data on earthworm abundance, biomass, diversity and corresponding environmental properties

  Scientific Data · 2021 · 67 citations

  Earthworms are an important soil taxon as ecosystem engineers, providing a variety of crucial ecosystem functions and services. Little is known about their diversity and distribution at large spatial scales, despite the availability of considerable amounts of local-scale data. Earthworm diversity data, obtained from the primary literature or provided directly by authors, were collated with information on site locations, including coordinates, habitat cover, and soil properties. Datasets were req…

  DOI

• The second wave of earthworm invasions in North America: biology, environmental impacts, management and control of invasive jumping worms

  Biological Invasions · 2021 · 64 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Bioaccumulation, physiological distribution, and biotransformation of tetrabromobisphenol a (TBBPA) in the geophagous earthworm Metaphire guillelmi – hint for detoxification strategy

  Journal of Hazardous Materials · 2020 · 47 citations

  DOI

• Earthworm assemblages in urban habitats across biogeographical regions

  Applied Soil Ecology · 2020 · 39 citations

  In urban landscapes, humans are the most significant factor determining belowground diversity, including earthworms. Within the framework of the Global Urban Soil Ecology and Education Network (GLUSEEN), a multi-city comparison was carried out to assess the effects of soil disturbance on earthworms. In each of five cities (Baltimore, USA; Budapest, Hungary; Helsinki and Lahti, Finland; Potchefstroom, South Africa), covering four climatic and biogeographical regions, four habitat types (ruderal,…

  DOI

• Urbanization minimizes the effects of plant traits on soil provisioned ecosystem services across climatic regions

  Global Change Biology · 2021-05-22 · 35 citations

  articleOpen access

  An increasingly urbanized world is one of the most prominent examples of global environmental change. Across the globe, urban parks are designed and managed in a similar way, resulting in visually pleasing expansions of lawn interspersed with individually planted trees of varying appearances and functional traits. These large urban greenspaces have the capacity to provide various ecosystem services, including those associated with soil physicochemical properties. Our aim was to explore whether s…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• IDBR: An End-to-End Sensor Based System for Environmental Monitoring

  NSF · $400k · 2008–2012

• Collaborative Research: Investigating the soil-earthworm-litter system controls on the stabilization of soil organic matter in Eastern deciduous forests

  NSF · $151k · 2008–2012

• EAGER-NEON: Earthworm Diversity at Multiple Scales: What can Genetics Tell us about the Distribution of these Important Soil Organisms?

  NSF · $286k · 2016–2018

Frequent coauthors

• Ian D. Yesilonis

  31 shared

• Richard V. Pouyat

  University of Delaware

  25 shared

• Csaba Csuzdi

  Eszterhazy Karoly Catholic University

  22 shared

• Chih‐Han Chang

  National Taiwan University

  18 shared

• Elisabeth Hornung

  University of Veterinary Medicine

  15 shared

• Miklós Dombos

  13 shared

• Melissa McCormick

  Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

  12 shared

• Heikki Setälä

  10 shared

Education

• PhD

  Eotvos Lorand University

• MSc

  Eotvos Lorand University

• BSc

  Eotvos Lorand University

Similar researchers at Johns Hopkins University

• Julie K. Lundquisth-82
• Darryn Waughh-81
• Dimitri Sverjenskyh-70