Alan Townsend

Associate Professor

alan.townsend@colorado.edu
303-492-6865
INSTAAR, RL1-116
INSTAAR Lab

Ph.D., Stanford University, 1994

Research Interests

Research Interests: Terrestrial ecosystem ecology and biogeochemistry. Research interests include the effects of human activity on regional to global scale carbon and nitrogen cycling; feedbacks between tropical ecosystems and several components of global environmental change, including climate, land-use change, and increasing nitrogen deposition; controls over nutrient limitation in moist tropical ecosystems.

Recent Publications

Cleveland, C.C., A.R. Townsend and S.C. Reed. 2005. Nutrient regulation of organic matter decomposition in a tropical rain forest. Ecology, in press.

Bern, C.B., A.R. Townsend and G.L. Farmer. 2005. Unexpected dominance of parent-material strontium in a tropical forest on highly weathered soils. Ecology, 86(3):626-632.

Townsend, A. R. , R. W. Howarth , F. A. Bazzaz , M. S. Booth , C. C. Cleveland , S. K. Collinge , A. P. Dobson , P. R. Epstein, E. A. Holland, D. R. Keeney , M. A. Mallin , P. Wayne and A. Wolfe. 2003. Human health effects of a changing global nitrogen cycle. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 1(5):240-246.

Palmer, M.A., E. Bernhardt, E. Chornesky, S.L. Collins, A. Dobson, C. Duke, B. Gold, R. Jacobson, S. Kingsland, R. Kranz, M. Mappin, M. L. Martinez, F. Micheli, J.L. Morse, M. Pace, M. Pascual, S. Palumbi, J. Reichman, W.H. Schlesinger, A. Townsend , and M. G. Turner. 2004. Ecology for a Crowded Planet. Science, 304 (5675): 1251-1252.

Galloway, J. N., G. Asner, E. W. Boyer, D. G. Capone, C. Cleveland, F. J. Dentener, P. Greene, E. Holland, R. W. Howarth, D. M. Karl, A. F. Michaels, S. P. Seitzinger, A. R. Townsend , C. Vorosmarty (alphabetical after first). 2004. Global and Regional Nitrogen Cycles: Past, Present and Future. Biogeochemistry, 70 (2): 153-226

Seastedt, T.R., W.D. Bowman, D. McKnight, A.R. Townsend and M. Williams. 2004. The Landscape Continuum: A Conceptual Model for High Elevation Ecosystems. BioScience, 54(2):111-121.

Townsend, A.R. , G.P. Asner, C.C. Cleveland, M.E. Lefer and M. M. C. Bustamante. 2002. Unexpected changes in soil phosphorus dynamics following tropical deforestation to cattle pasture. Journal of Geophysical Research,VOL. 107, NO. D20, 8067.

Townsend, A.R. , G.P. Asner, P.P. Tans and J.W. C. White. 2002. Tropical land use effects on atmospheric 13C imply a sizable terrestrial carbon sink in equatorial latitudes. Geophysical Research Letters, VOL. 29, NO. 10, 10.1029.

Neff, J.C., A.R. Townsend , G. Gleixner, S.J. Lehman, J. Turnbull and W.D. Bowman. 2002. Variable effects of nitrogen additions on the stability and turnover of organic carbon. Nature, 419: 915-917.