Welcome to the Soper Lab in the Department of Biology and School of Environment at McGill University
Our research explores the interface between plant physiology and ecosystem nutrient cycling. What traits, trade-offs, and symbioses shape plant nutrient uptake strategies? How do these plant traits drive biogeochemical processes such as soil nutrient availability and trace gas emissions? Ultimately, how do these intersect to impact large scale processes such as productivity and ecosystem nutrient cycling? We work across a range of biomes (with a current focus on tropical forests), and are especially fascinated by drivers and responses to a range of global change processes.
Our research explores the interface between plant physiology and ecosystem nutrient cycling. What traits, trade-offs, and symbioses shape plant nutrient uptake strategies? How do these plant traits drive biogeochemical processes such as soil nutrient availability and trace gas emissions? Ultimately, how do these intersect to impact large scale processes such as productivity and ecosystem nutrient cycling? We work across a range of biomes (with a current focus on tropical forests), and are especially fascinated by drivers and responses to a range of global change processes.
News
PhD stduent Katie Nelson measuring soil N2O in the SWELTR warming experiment in Panama
PhD student Caroline Dallstream giving a workshop on root sampling at a New Phytologist working group
Above: Hons student Sofia Quijada Sanabria presenting at the Quebec Center for Biodiversity Science meeting
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Mar 2025: Spring updates! Caroline's new paper (Strong scale-dependent relationships between fine-root function and soil conditions uncovered with spatially-coupled sampling) was just accepted in New Phytologist, Ana and Katie presented at the AGU Meeting in December, and we received an FRQNT/NSERC grant to build on our work measuring and modeling tropical denitrification responses to global change with collaborator Sian Kou-Giesbrecht. Congrats to to Katie who also just received an FRQNT doctoral fellowship to continue work on this project!
The lab has also recently joined the Quebec Center for Biodiversity Science (Hons student Sofia presented her research at their annual meeting) and Fiona's Environment students authored a stewardship plan for the Creek 53 Land Trust in Quebec. July 2024: Our new paper (and Mia's MS thesis research) 'Evolutionary history and root trait coordination predict nutrient strategy in tropical legume trees' is now out in New Phytologist! Apr 2024: Some wins for the year. Caroline published an invited commentary for New Phytologist, Katie presented at the EGU meeting in Vienna, Ana was awarded a prestigious FQRNT Doctoral scholarship, and the lab just got an RTI grant funded with our collaborator Sian Kou-Giesbrecht at Dalhousie. We'll miss Honors students Cara (off to a PhD at Northwestern!) and Samti, but are excited to welcome undergrads Sofia and Salvador, and Molly Gatreau for an MS in the Fall. This summer we're excited to set up a new greenhouse experiment with tropical trees and work on the AusStoich project. Sep 2023: A busy summer! The lab has been in the field sampling plant and soil stoichiometry for the INCyTE distributed experiment. UGs Jacob and Cara have been working on optimizing protocols for measuring N fixation and a new synthesis on the tropical nitrogen cycle. Caroline presented at the Ecological Society of America meeting, and is off to Costa Rica to collaborate with the Taylor Lab at Harvard on a tropical eCO2 experiment! Finally, we are welcoming Katie Nelson (new PhD) and Samti Luk (Hons) joining us in the Fall. Apr 2023: Caroline had a great time at the Tropiroot working group meeting in Panama and shared her expertise on root field methods (pic above). Congrats Natalie for her Honors poster presentation. Dec 2022: Congrats to (Master) Mia, our first official lab graduate. Mia has already landed a cool data analytics job using the R and stats skill she developed during her program! Nov 22: Three new collaborative papers are out now! Lean about patterns and drivers of plant stoichiometric flexibility (from the INCyTE RCN, led by Katy Dynarski), the state of knowledge on cryptic nitrogen fixation (led by Cory Cleveland), and tropical tree responses to P limitation (led by the newly-minted Dr. Laura Toro) in the Publications tab! |
Aug 2022: At the recent Ecological Society of America meeting (held in Montreal), Mia presented the results of her MS research and Caroline received an Honorable Mention for the Biogeosciences section student paper award.
Caroline and Lola also pulled off a successful field season tracing roots in Costa Rica, braving tarantulas, bed snakes, and a hurricane!
Apr 2022: Huge congrats to Caroline for winning the Lucy Braun Award from the Ecological Society of America for her 2021 poster presentation. This is a society-wide prize and a great honor.
Fiona will be on leave until the end of 2022, raising the newest member of the Soper lab (baby Jake arrived in March!).
Feb 2022: Caroline's new paper synthesizing evidence for co-existence of different fine root trait syndromes in tropical forests, and implications for ecosystem function, is out now as a Forum piece in Oikos. Well done!
Aug 2021: Congrats to Caroline for submitting the lab's first student-led paper, and Mia, Natalie, and Emily for finishing a truly mammoth greenhouse harvest this summer!
Also check out Fiona's interview on Living Planet Radio, and our op-ed on forest degradation and climate in the Amazon (in Portuguese).
May 2021: We are also excited to welcome undergrads Emily and Natalie to work with us this summer, and Ana who will join us as a PhD student this fall. Mia has her big greenhouse experiment planted, and Caroline and Fiona are contributing to a new review paper by the Tropiroot group.
March 2021: It's a month for papers! Very excited to announce that a new roadmap for designing and implementing N fixation measurements led by Fiona is out now in Methods in Ecology and Evolution! This paper brings together decades of wisdom from a big group of collaborators. Fiona also has a complementary synthesis of conversion ratios used for acetylene reduction assays for N fix out in Biogeochemistry, and a new review on using stable isotopes to understand plant-environment interactions.
Aug 202o: Fiona's Global Change Biology paper on invasive mangroves and carbon storage won the Ecological Society of America's Gene Likens paper award! Thanks to the Biogeosciences section for supporting early career scientists.
Jun 2020: Check out this great article in the Washington Post about our latest field campaign exploring the potential to use volcanically elevated CO2 to study climate change in tropical forests. Our work was also featured in New Scientist magazine. After a mammoth effort by a huge team, our new comprehensive handbook on methods for climate change experiments is also out now
Jul 2019: Fiona's first trip to the Amazon was both mind blowing (baby sloths!) and productive (working group on global change and the biogeochemical future of the Basin): thanks to the National Geographic Society for hosting. I'll be presenting our synthesis at the 2020 ESA and AGU meetings.
Jun 2019: The first INCyTE RCN meeting is a wrap! We'll be launching many new projects and syntheses over the next year. If you're interested in getting involved, submit to our 'Coupled Biogeochemical Cycles' AGU session
Feb 2019: We have a new Concepts & Synthesis paper out in Ecology, showing that Paleotropical forests allocate proportionally more biomass to wood (vs leaves) than than their Neotropical counterparts, suggesting that these Paleotropical forests are hotspots for tropical C storage. Our recent Proceedings B paper showing that leaf cutter ants engineer greenhouse gas hot spots in tropical rainforests was featured in Science magazine, New Scientist, and Gizmodo!
Caroline and Lola also pulled off a successful field season tracing roots in Costa Rica, braving tarantulas, bed snakes, and a hurricane!
Apr 2022: Huge congrats to Caroline for winning the Lucy Braun Award from the Ecological Society of America for her 2021 poster presentation. This is a society-wide prize and a great honor.
Fiona will be on leave until the end of 2022, raising the newest member of the Soper lab (baby Jake arrived in March!).
Feb 2022: Caroline's new paper synthesizing evidence for co-existence of different fine root trait syndromes in tropical forests, and implications for ecosystem function, is out now as a Forum piece in Oikos. Well done!
Aug 2021: Congrats to Caroline for submitting the lab's first student-led paper, and Mia, Natalie, and Emily for finishing a truly mammoth greenhouse harvest this summer!
Also check out Fiona's interview on Living Planet Radio, and our op-ed on forest degradation and climate in the Amazon (in Portuguese).
May 2021: We are also excited to welcome undergrads Emily and Natalie to work with us this summer, and Ana who will join us as a PhD student this fall. Mia has her big greenhouse experiment planted, and Caroline and Fiona are contributing to a new review paper by the Tropiroot group.
March 2021: It's a month for papers! Very excited to announce that a new roadmap for designing and implementing N fixation measurements led by Fiona is out now in Methods in Ecology and Evolution! This paper brings together decades of wisdom from a big group of collaborators. Fiona also has a complementary synthesis of conversion ratios used for acetylene reduction assays for N fix out in Biogeochemistry, and a new review on using stable isotopes to understand plant-environment interactions.
Aug 202o: Fiona's Global Change Biology paper on invasive mangroves and carbon storage won the Ecological Society of America's Gene Likens paper award! Thanks to the Biogeosciences section for supporting early career scientists.
Jun 2020: Check out this great article in the Washington Post about our latest field campaign exploring the potential to use volcanically elevated CO2 to study climate change in tropical forests. Our work was also featured in New Scientist magazine. After a mammoth effort by a huge team, our new comprehensive handbook on methods for climate change experiments is also out now
Jul 2019: Fiona's first trip to the Amazon was both mind blowing (baby sloths!) and productive (working group on global change and the biogeochemical future of the Basin): thanks to the National Geographic Society for hosting. I'll be presenting our synthesis at the 2020 ESA and AGU meetings.
Jun 2019: The first INCyTE RCN meeting is a wrap! We'll be launching many new projects and syntheses over the next year. If you're interested in getting involved, submit to our 'Coupled Biogeochemical Cycles' AGU session
Feb 2019: We have a new Concepts & Synthesis paper out in Ecology, showing that Paleotropical forests allocate proportionally more biomass to wood (vs leaves) than than their Neotropical counterparts, suggesting that these Paleotropical forests are hotspots for tropical C storage. Our recent Proceedings B paper showing that leaf cutter ants engineer greenhouse gas hot spots in tropical rainforests was featured in Science magazine, New Scientist, and Gizmodo!
