Lars Hedin

About

Lars Hedin is the George M. Moffett Professor of Biology in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. His laboratory focuses on ecosystem analysis, emphasizing the emergence and maintenance of broad patterns in nutrient cycling and greenhouse trace gases. His research encompasses topics ranging from local microbial processes to global controls on ecosystem structure and function. Current research interests include broad controls on nutrient cycles in temperate and tropical forests, the emergence of macroscopic properties from Darwinian selection, and biophysical controls on soil-atmosphere exchange of methane. Hedin is particularly interested in understanding how biogeochemical cycles are changing globally due to large-scale human activities and how these changes influence the evolutionary environments of plants and microbes. His team has studied remote forests in southern Chile and Argentina that are free from major human influences, providing a baseline for natural forest functioning. These studies are expanding to include tropical forests across the Hawaiian archipelago, the Amazon basin, Panama, and locations in Africa. From an evolutionary perspective, Hedin seeks to understand why patterns in nutrient cycles emerge despite complex biotic and abiotic interactions, and how evolution alters organism-nutrient relations over time. His work involves developing models to explore how plant and microbial functional properties are affected by…

Research topics

• Ecology
• Soil science
• Geography
• Geology
• Chemistry
• Environmental science
• Biology

Selected publications

• Contrasting effects of aridity and seasonality on global salinization

  Nature Geoscience · 2022 · 109 citations

  PublisherDOI

• Legume–microbiome interactions unlock mineral nutrients in regrowing tropical forests

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2021 · 83 citations

  -fixing trees can influence the wider biogeochemical functioning of tropical forest ecosystems in a manner that enhances their ability to assimilate and store atmospheric carbon.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Tropical carbon sink accelerated by symbiotic dinitrogen fixation

  Nature Communications · 2019-12-10 · 62 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract A major uncertainty in the land carbon cycle is whether symbiotic nitrogen fixation acts to enhance the tropical forest carbon sink. Nitrogen-fixing trees can supply vital quantities of the growth-limiting nutrient nitrogen, but the extent to which the resulting carbon–nitrogen feedback safeguards ecosystem carbon sequestration remains unclear. We combine (i) field observations from 112 plots spanning 300 years of succession in Panamanian tropical forests, and (ii) a new model that reso…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Rapid nitrogen fixation by canopy microbiome in tropical forest determined by both phosphorus and molybdenum

  Ecology · 2019-07-14 · 43 citations

  articleSenior author

  Biological nitrogen fixation is critical for the nitrogen cycle of tropical forests, yet we know little about the factors that control the microbial nitrogen fixers that colonize the microbiome of leaves and branches that make up a forest canopy. Forest canopies are especially prone to nutrient limitation because they are (1) disconnected from soil nutrient pools and (2) often subject to leaching. Earlier studies have suggested a role of phosphorus and molybdenum in controlling biological N-fixa…

  PublisherDOI

• Biome boundary maintained by intense belowground resource competition in world’s thinnest-rooted plant community

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2022-02-14 · 35 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Significance The distribution and stability of biomes are critical for understanding, modeling, and managing the land biosphere. While studies have emphasized abiotic factors such as climate, geology, or fire regimes, we here identify a biological mechanism—plant–plant competition for belowground resources—as critical for maintaining the boundary between the Fynbos and Afrotemperate Forest biomes in South Africa. We demonstrate an apparent general mechanism in which local competition triggers a…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Linking Theory and Mechanistic Experiments in Explaining How Nitrogen Fixation Strategies Influence Ecosystem Nitrogen Fertility

  NSF · $12k · 2006–2009

• Dissertation Research: Morphology and plant-soil feedbacks in foggy environments

  NSF · $14k · 2009–2011

• Biogeochemical Controls on Nitrogen Fixation in a Diverse Neotropical Forest

  NSF · $445k · 2006–2010

Frequent coauthors

• JoAnne S. Richards

  45 shared

• Jason C. Neff

  University of Colorado System

  38 shared

• Robert B. Jackson

  Stanford University

  37 shared

• Gene E. Likens

  36 shared

• Mark Davis

  36 shared

• Ken Thompson

  Stanford University

  36 shared

• Sarah E. Hobbie

  University of Minnesota

  36 shared

• Sarah A. Batterman

  Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

  33 shared

Similar researchers at Princeton University

• David Wilcoveh-85
• C. Jessica E. Metcalfh-78
• Jonathan Levineh-75