What habitat is the most diverse on earth, and yet we know little about it? Who do we rely on to recycle nutrients, produce and consume gases that affect global climate, destroy pollutants, treat wastes and without whom life on earth would cease? The answer is nothing that you can easily see with the naked eye. The answer lies beneath your feet. The soil is teeming with microscopic life, most of which is undescribed, but which is vital for our survival. Dr. Sue Grayston and colleagues are investigating the intriguing world belowground here at UBC’s Faculty of Forestry.

Dr. Grayston is a faculty member in the Department of Forest Sciences at UBC, and holds a Canada Research Chair (CRC) in soil microbial ecology. Sue obtained her PhD from the University of Sheffield in the UK, was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Saskatchewan, a research fellow at the NRC’s Plant Biotechnology Institute in Saskatoon, then was a principal scientist at the Scottish Government’s Macaulay Land Use Research Institute in Aberdeen for 10 years prior to coming to UBC.

Sue is currently an associate editor for the Canadian Journal of Forest Research, Soil Biology & Biochemistry and the Canadian Journal of Soil Science. She also serves as a member of NSERC’s Discovery Grant Selection Committee 18 (Ecology and Evolution) and as a member on the Ecology, Evolutionary, Environmental and Organismal Biology (EEEOB) grant review panel of the Research Frontiers Programme of the Science Foundation of Ireland.

Sue’s research focuses on the application of novel molecular and stable isotope probing methods to characterize soil microbial diversity and function in forests and determine the sustainability of different forest management practices.  Since arriving at UBC, she has set up the Belowground Ecosystem Group (BEG) Research Cluster in the Faculty of Forestry, which includes Drs Chanway, Prescott and Simard. The BEG shares research laboratories and state-of-the-art equipment devoted to different analytical techniques e.g. molecular biology, microscopy, biochemistry, stable isotope probing which provides an environment to conduct interdisciplinary collaborative research towards the eventual scientific goal of linking structure and function in belowground ecosystems.

Sue and her team of post docs, research associates and graduate students are undertaking a wide range of projects related to sustainable forest management, climate change and land reclamation. These include assessing the potential of variable retention harvesting to maintain soil function after harvest, the potential of forest fertilization to increase C sequestration in forests and effects on greenhouse gas emissions and assessing the best reclamation prescriptions for restoration of the Athabasca oil sands after oil extraction.

For more information contact Sue Grayston (sue.grayston@ubc.ca) or visit the Belowground Ecosystem Group’s website.