We investigate fundamental processes controlling carbon and nutrient stores in plants, soils and sediments within natural and managed ecosystems.

We also study how factors such as mineral surface adsorption, environmental conditions and disturbance by drought and fire, mediate fluxes of organic carbon and nutrients.

Our aim is to accurately assess the chemical nature and source of sequestered carbon in long-term residence pools and to properly assess the organic carbon storage or loss potential of specific land uses and climate change. Such approaches are integral to understanding the productivity of both terrestrial and aquatic systems.

Further information

• Fellman JB, Spencer RG, Raymond PA, Pettit NE, Skrzypek G, Hernes PJ, Grierson PF. (2014) Dissolved organic carbon biolability decreases along with its modernization in fluvial networks in an ancient landscape. Ecology 95(9), 2622–2632.
• Mallick M, Dutta S, Greenwood PF. (2014) Molecular characterization of fossil and extant dammar resin extracts: Insights into diagenetic fate of sesqui-and triterpenoids. International Journal of Coal Geology. 121, 129-136.
• Pages A, Grice K, Vacher M, Welsh DT, Teasdale PR, Bennett WW, Greenwood P (2014) Characterising microbial communities and processes in a modern stromatolite (Shark Bay) using lipid biomarkers and two-dimensional distributions of porewater solutes. Environmental Microbiology. DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.12378.
• Plant EL, Smernik RJ, van Leeuwen J, Greenwood P, Macdonald LM. (2014) Changes in the nature of dissolved organics during pulp and paper mill wastewater treatment: a multivariate statistical study combining data from three analytical techniques. Environmental Science and Pollution Research. 21 (6), 4265-4275.
   
  
• Fellman JB, Pettit NE, Kalic J, Grierson PF. (2013). Influence of stream–floodplain biogeochemical linkages on aquatic foodweb structure along a gradient of stream size in a tropical catchment.  Freshwater Science 32, 217-229.
• Fellman JB, Petrone K, Grierson PF.  (2013) Leaf litter age, chemical quality and photodegradation control the fate of leachate dissolved organic matter in a dryland river. Journal of Arid Environments 89, 30-37.
  
  
• Pettit NE, Davies T, Fellman, JB, Grierson PF, Warfe DM, Davies PM. (2012) Leaf litter breakdown and food web structure in two Australian tropical streams of contrasting hydrology. Hydrobiologia 680, 63-77.
  
  
• Bougoure J, Brundrett MD and Grierson PF. (2010) The ultimate subterranean symbiosis: carbon and nitrogen supply to the underground orchid. New Phytologist 186, 947-956.
  
  
• Greenwood PF, Lengkeek NA, Piggott MJ and Pierce K. (2009) Structural identification and mass spectral interpretation of C3n highly branched alkanes in sediment and aquatic extracts and evidence for their anthropogenic origin. Organic Geochemistry 40, 1055-1062. 
• McIntyre RES, Adams MA, Ford DJ and Grierson PF. (2009) Rewetting and litter addition influence mineralisation and microbial communities in soils from a semi-arid intermittent stream. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 41, 92-101.
  
  
• Ford DJ, Cookson WR, Adams MA and Grierson PF. (2007) Role of soil drying in nitrogen mineralization and microbial community function in semi-arid grasslands of north-west Australia. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 39, 1557-1569.