Daniela F. Cusack
1255 Bunche Hall
Box 951524
Los Angeles, CA 90095
t: 310.206.5536
f: 310.206.5976
email: dcusack@geog.ucla.edu
office: 1113 Bunche; Labs: A-211 Bunche and 3301/3309 LifeSci
HOMEPAGE

EDUCATION

Ph.D. University of California - Berkeley
M.S. Yale University
B.A. Wesleyan University

SUBFIELDS

Biogeochemistry, Ecosystem Science, Tropical Ecology

RESEARCH INTERESTS

My research is in biogeography and ecosystem science, with an emphasis on biogeochemistry and global change factors. I focus on drivers of plant-soil-microbe processes and carbon cycling with changes in climate and nutrient availability (e.g. nitrogen deposition, warming, deforestation, and fire regime). In addition to altering plant productivity and carbon inputs to soils, global change can directly alter soil carbon storage via changes in microbial activity, decomposition, and soil chemical properties. My current projects are: 1) biogeochemical impacts of urbanization in Latin American watersheds; 2) long-term soil carbon storage across climate and soil weathering gradients in Hawai’i; 3) effects of charcoal on plant-soil-microbe interactions in fire-prone California grasslands.

AWARDS

• University of California Office of the President Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2009-present.
  
• University of California Dissertation-Year Fellowship, 2008-2009.
  
• James P. Bennett Agriculture Fund Award, UC Berkeley, 2008.
  
• National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, 2007-2009.
  
• UC Berkeley Chancellor's Scholarship, UC Berkeley, 2003-2004 & 2007-2008.
  
• UC Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center (BASC) Research Award, 2006-2008.
  
• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, 2004-2007.
  
• Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Facility Grant, 2007.
  
• Tropical Resources Institute, Research Grant, Yale University, 2002.
  

GRAD STUDENTS

Sarah Halterman
Taylor McCleery

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Cusack, DF, OA Chadwick, WC Hockaday, and PM Vitousek (2012). Mineralogical Controls on Soil Black Carbon Preservation. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, in press.

Cusack, DF, OA Chadwick, T Ladefoged, and PM Vitousek (2012). Long-Term Effects of Agriculture on Soil Carbon Pools and Carbon Chemistry Along a Hawaiian Environmental Gradient. Biogeochemistry, in press.

Cusack, DF, WL Silver, MS Torn, SD Burton, and MK Firestone (2011). Changes in Microbial Community Characteristics and Soil Organic Matter with Nitrogen Additions in Two Tropical Forests. Ecology, 92(3): 621-632.

Cusack, DF, WL Silver, MS Torn, and WH McDowell (2011). Effects of Nitrogen Additions on Above- and Belowground Carbon Dynamics in Two Tropical Forests. Biogeochemistry, 104: 203-225.

Cusack, DF, MS Torn, WH McDowell, and WL Silver (2010). The Response of Heterotrophic Activity and Carbon Cycling to Nitrogen Additions and Warming in Two Tropical Soils. Global Change Biology, 16(9): 2555-2572.

Cusack, DF, WW Chou, WH Yang, ME Harmon, WL Silver, the LIDET team (2009). Controls on Long-Term Root and Leaf Litter Decomposition in Neotropical Forests. Global Change Biology, 15(5): 1339-1355.

Cusack, DF, WL Silver, and WH McDowell (2009). Biological Nitrogen Fixation in Tropical Forests: Spatial Variation and Effects of Nitrogen Deposition. Ecosystems, 12: 1299-1315.

Marin-Spiotta, E, DF Cusack, R Ostertag, and W Silver (2008). “Trends in Above and Belowground Carbon with Forest Regrowth After Agricultural Abandonment in the Neotropics.” Pp. 22-72. In: Post Agricultural Succession in the Neotropics. R.W. Myster, Ed. Springer, New York, NY.

Cusack, D, and L Dixon (2006). Community-Based Ecotourism and Sustainability: Cases in Bocas del Toro Province, Panama and Talamanca, Costa Rica. Journal of Sustainable Forestry, 22(1/2):157.

Cusack, D, and F Montagnini (2004). The Role of Native Species Plantations in Recovery of Understory Woody Diversity in Degraded Pasturelands of Costa Rica. Forest Ecology and Management 188:1-15.