Sasha C Reed, Ph.D.
Dr. Sasha Reed is an ecologist focused on understanding how our planet's ecosystems work and what factors determine the services they provide. The study sites and methods Sasha uses are diverse, and with each of her projects she strives to provide scientific information that helps our nation address challenges, solve problems, and maximize opportunities.
Sasha seeks to provide useful information for land managers, policy-makers, and the general public. Sasha uses both basic and applied scientific approaches to improve our understanding of the fundamental controls over ecosystems, to determine how these systems respond to change, and to explore solutions for addressing relevant problems. Sasha works closely with a range of collaborators - including federal agency partners (BLM, NPS, DOE, DoD, BIA, USFS, USFWS) - in designing research studies, conducting information and technology transfer, and performing outreach activities. Some of her primary research interests include understanding how drought and increasing temperatures affect ecosystems, exploring a diversity of energy options for meeting national demand, assessing the consequences of exotic plant invasion and ways to combat them, and establishing novel management options for increased effectiveness and efficiency in restoration and reclamation. Sasha attempts to conduct research that is innovative, collaborative, and useful.
Professional Experience
Research Ecologist, USGS, Southwest Biological Science Center, Moab, UT: May 2008 - present
Research Ecologist, USGS-SCEP Program, Moab, UT: 2005 - 2007 summers only
Fellow, NSF Graduate Research Fellowship: Awarded April 2003; deferred until September 2005-May 2008
Fellow, National Science Foundation IGERT Fellowship, Carbon Climate and Society Initiative (CCSI): August 2003-August 2005.
Education and Certifications
Ph.D. in Biogeochemistry, 2002-2008: University of Colorado at Boulder, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Institute of Arctic & Alpine Research (INSTAAR).
B.A. in Organic Chemistry, 1993-1997: Colgate University, Department of Chemistry, Hamilton, NY. Graduated magna cum laude.
Honors and Awards
Elected Member-At-Large, Ecological Society of America (ESA). August 2020-August 2022.
Ecological Society of America (ESA) Early Career Fellow. March 2016.
Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). October 2011.
Star Award, Department of the Interior. October 2010, May 2000.
Graduate Student Research and Creative Works Award, University of Colorado at Boulder. May 2008.
USGS Student Career Experience Program (SCEP) Fellowship. June-August of 2006 & 2007.
Student Policy Award, Ecological Society of America (ESA). September 2006.
AAAS Program for Excellence in Science. August 2006.
Lawrence Award. April 1996.
Phi Ea Sigma University Honor Society Awarded Membership. April 1994-May 1997.
Phi Eta Sigma Aid Committee Selected Board Member. September 1995-May 1997.
Barry Goldwater Award Nominee. November 1994.
Science and Products
Modest residual effects of short-term warming, altered hydration, and biocrust successional state on dryland soil heterotrophic carbon and nitrogen cycling
From pools to flow: The PROMISE framework for new insights on soil carbon cycling in a changing world
Experimental warming changes phenology and shortens growing season of the dominant invasive plant Bromus tectorum (cheatgrass)
Photosynthetic and respiratory acclimation of understory shrubs in response to in situ experimental warming of a wet tropical forest
The influence of soil age on ecosystem structure and function across biomes
Nitrogen enrichment reduces nitrogen and phosphorus resorption through changes to species resorption and plant community composition
The pervasive and multifaceted influence of biocrusts on water in the world’s drylands
Seasonal and individual event-responsiveness are key determinants of carbon exchange across plant functional types
Tropical understory herbaceous community responds more strongly to hurricane disturbance than to experimental warming
The effects of climate change on tropical forests may have global consequences due to the forests’ high biodiversity and major role in the global carbon cycle. In this study, we document the effects of experimental warming on the abundance and composition of a tropical forest floor herbaceous plant community in the Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico. This study was conducted within Tropical
Biological nitrogen fixation across major biomes in Latin America: Patterns and global change effects
Multiple mechanisms determine the effect of warming on plant litter decomposition in a dryland
Altered climate leads to positive density‐dependent feedbacks in a tropical wet forest
Non-USGS Publications**
**Disclaimer: The views expressed in Non-USGS publications are those of the author and do not represent the views of the USGS, Department of the Interior, or the U.S. Government.
Science and Products
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Modest residual effects of short-term warming, altered hydration, and biocrust successional state on dryland soil heterotrophic carbon and nitrogen cycling
Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) on the Colorado Plateau may fuel carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling of soil heterotrophic organisms throughout the region. Late successional moss and lichen biocrusts, in particular, can increase soil C and N availability, but some data suggest these biocrust types will be replaced by early successional cyanobacterial biocrusts as the region undergoes warming anAuthorsColin Tucker, Scott Ferrenberg, Sasha C. ReedFrom pools to flow: The PROMISE framework for new insights on soil carbon cycling in a changing world
Soils represent the largest terrestrial reservoir of organic carbon, and the balance between soil organic carbon (SOC) formation and loss will drive powerful carbon‐climate feedbacks over the coming century. To date, efforts to predict SOC dynamics have rested on pool‐based models, which assume classes of SOC with internally homogenous physicochemical properties. However, emerging evidence suggestAuthorsBonnie G. Waring, Benjamin N. Sulman, Sasha C. Reed, A. Peyton Smith, Colin Averill, Courtney Creamer, Daniela F. Cusack, Steven J. Hall, Julie Jastrow, Kenneth M. Kemner, Markus Kleber, Xiao-Jun Allen Liu, Jennifer Pett-Ridge, Marjorie S. SchulzExperimental warming changes phenology and shortens growing season of the dominant invasive plant Bromus tectorum (cheatgrass)
Bromus tectorum (cheatgrass) has successfully invaded and established throughout the western United States. Bromus tectorum grows early in the season and this early growth allows B. tectorum to outcompete native species, which has led to dramatic shifts in ecosystem function and plant community composition after B. tectorum invades. If the phenology of native species is unable to track changing clAuthorsArmin J. Howell, Daniel E. Winkler, Michala Lee Phillips, Brandon McNellis, Sasha C. ReedPhotosynthetic and respiratory acclimation of understory shrubs in response to in situ experimental warming of a wet tropical forest
Despite the importance of tropical forests to global carbon balance, our understanding of how tropical plant physiology will respond to climate warming is limited. In addition, the contribution of tropical forest understories to global carbon cycling is predicted to increase with rising temperatures, however, in situ warming studies of tropical forest plants to date focus only on upper canopies. WAuthorsKelsey R. Carter, Tana E Wood, Sasha C. Reed, Elsa C. Schwartz, Madeline B. Reinsel, Xi YangThe influence of soil age on ecosystem structure and function across biomes
The importance of soil age as an ecosystem driver across biomes remains largely unresolved. By combining a cross-biome global field survey, including data for 32 soil, plant, and microbial properties in 16 soil chronosequences, with a global meta-analysis, we show that soil age is a significant ecosystem driver, but only accounts for a relatively small proportion of the cross-biome variation in muAuthorsManuel Delgado-Baquerizo, Peter B. Reich, Richard D. Bardgett, David J. Eldridge, Hans Lambers, David A. Wardle, Sasha C. Reed, César Plaza, Guochen K. Png, Sigrid Neuhauser, Asmeret A. Berhe, Stephen C. Hart, Hang-Wei Hu, Ji-Zheng He, Felipe Bastida, Sebastián R. Abades, Fernando D. Alfaro, Nick A. Cutler, Antonio Gallardo, Laura García-Velázquez, Patrick E. Hayes, Zeng-Yei Hseu, Cecilia A. Pérez, Fernanda Santos, Christina Siebe, Pankaj Trivedi, Benjamin W. Sullivan, Luis Weber-Grullon, Mark A. Williams, Noah FiererNitrogen enrichment reduces nitrogen and phosphorus resorption through changes to species resorption and plant community composition
Anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition has affected plant community composition and nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems worldwide. This includes changes to the way plants use and recycle nutrients, including effects on nutrient resorption, which is a key process through which plants recover nutrients from tissue during senescence. Nutrient resorption has considerable adaptive and functionalAuthorsXiao-Tao Lü, Shuang-Li Hou, Sasha C. Reed, Jiang-Xia Yin, Yan-Yu Hu, Hai-Wei Wei, Zhi-Wei Zhang, Guo-Jiao Yang, Zhuo-Yi Liu, Xing-Guo HanThe pervasive and multifaceted influence of biocrusts on water in the world’s drylands
The capture and use of water are critically important in drylands, which collectively constitute Earth's largest biome. Drylands will likely experience lower and more unreliable rainfall as climatic conditions change over the next century. Dryland soils support a rich community of microphytic organisms (biocrusts), which are critically important because they regulate the delivery and retention ofAuthorsDavid J. Eldridge, Sasha C. Reed, Samantha K. Travers, Matthew A. Bowker, Fernando T. Maestre, Jingyi Ding, Caroline Ann Havrilla, Emilio Rodriguez-Caballero, Nichole N. Barger, Bettina Weber, Anita Antoninka, Jayne Belnap, Bala V. Chaudhary, Akasha M. Faist, Scott Ferrenberg, Elisabeth Huber-Sannwald, Oumarou M Issa, Y. ZhaoSeasonal and individual event-responsiveness are key determinants of carbon exchange across plant functional types
Differentiation in physiological activity is a critical component of resource partitioning in resource-limited environments. For example, it is crucial to understand how plant physiological performance varies through time for different functional groups to forecast how terrestrial ecosystems will respond to change. Here, we tracked the seasonal progress of 13 plant species representing C3 shrub, pAuthorsDaniel E. Winkler, Jayne Belnap, Michael C. Duniway, David Hoover, Sasha C. Reed, Hannah Yokum, Richard GillTropical understory herbaceous community responds more strongly to hurricane disturbance than to experimental warming
The effects of climate change on tropical forests may have global consequences due to the forests’ high biodiversity and major role in the global carbon cycle. In this study, we document the effects of experimental warming on the abundance and composition of a tropical forest floor herbaceous plant community in the Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico. This study was conducted within Tropical
AuthorsDeborah K. Kennard, David Matlaga, Joanne Sharpe, Clay C. King, Aura M. Alonso-Rodríguez, Sasha C. Reed, Molly A. Cavaleri, Tana E. WoodBiological nitrogen fixation across major biomes in Latin America: Patterns and global change effects
Biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) supports terrestrial primary productivity and plays key roles in mediating human-induced changes in global nitrogen (N) and carbon cycling. However, there are still critical uncertainties in our understanding of the amount of BNF occurring across terrestrial ecosystems, and of how terrestrial BNF will respond to global change. We synthesized BNF data from Latin AAuthorsCarla R. G. Reis, Felipe S. Pacheco, Sasha C. Reed, Graciela Tejada, Gabriela B. Nardoto, Maria C. Forti, Jean OmettoMultiple mechanisms determine the effect of warming on plant litter decomposition in a dryland
In drylands, where soil fertility is typically low, plant litter decomposition provides particularly critical carbon and nitrogen inputs into soil. Although climate change is projected to increase the already large global extent of drylands, it is unknown how warmer temperatures will affect core ecosystem processes, such as plant litter decomposition, in these systems. To address this key unknown,AuthorsPeter F. Chuckran, Robin H. Reibold, Heather L. Throop, Sasha C. ReedAltered climate leads to positive density‐dependent feedbacks in a tropical wet forest
Climate change is predicted to result in warmer and drier Neotropical forests relative to current conditions. Negative density‐dependent feedbacks, mediated by natural enemies, are key to maintaining the high diversity of tree species found in the tropics, yet we have little understanding of how projected changes in climate are likely to affect these critical controls. Over 3 years, we evaluated tAuthorsArmando Barreto-Muñoz, Aura M. Alonso-Rodríguez, Laura Aldrich-Wolfe, Molly A. Cavaleri, Sasha C. Reed, Tana E WoodNon-USGS Publications**
Sullivan, B.W., Alvarez-Clare, S., Castle, S.C., Porder, S., Reed, S.C., Schreeg, L., Townsend, A.R. and Cleveland, C.C., 2014. Assessing nutrient limitation in complex forested ecosystems: alternatives to large‐scale fertilization experiments. Ecology, 95(3), pp.668-681.Cleveland, C.C., Houlton, B.Z., Smith, W.K., Marklein, A.R., Reed, S.C., Parton, W., Del Grosso, S.J. and Running, S.W., 2013. Patterns of new versus recycled primary production in the terrestrial biosphere. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(31), pp.12733-12737.Reed, S.C., Cleveland, C.C. and Townsend, A.R., 2013. Relationships among phosphorus, molybdenum and free-living nitrogen fixation in tropical rain forests: results from observational and experimental analyses. Biogeochemistry, 114(1-3), pp.135-147.Wickings, K., Grandy, A.S., Reed, S.C. and Cleveland, C.C., 2012. The origin of litter chemical complexity during decomposition. Ecology Letters, 15(10), pp.1180-1188.Reed, S.C., 2008. Scaling from molecules to ecosystems: controls over free-living nitrogen fixation in terrestrial ecosystems. ProQuest.Sattin, S.R., Cleveland, C.C., Hood, E., Reed, S.C., King, A.J., Schmidt, S.K., Robeson, M.S., Ascarrunz, N. and Nemergut, D.R., 2009. Functional shifts in unvegetated, perhumid, recently-deglaciated soils do not correlate with shifts in soil bacterial community composition. The Journal of Microbiology, 47(6), pp.673-681.Costello, E.K., Halloy, S.R., Reed, S.C., Sowell, P. and Schmidt, S.K., 2009. Fumarole-supported islands of biodiversity within a hyperarid, high-elevation landscape on Socompa Volcano, Puna de Atacama, Andes. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 75(3), pp.735-747.Freeman, K.R., Pescador, M.Y., Reed, S.C., Costello, E.K., Robeson, M.S. and Schmidt, S.K., 2009. Soil CO2 flux and photoautotrophic community composition in high‐elevation,‘barren’soil. Environmental Microbiology, 11(3), pp.674-686.Schmidt, S.K., Reed, S.C., Nemergut, D.R., Grandy, A.S., Cleveland, C.C., Weintraub, M.N., Hill, A.W., Costello, E.K., Meyer, A.F., Neff, J.C. and Martin, A.M., 2008. The earliest stages of ecosystem succession in high-elevation (5000 metres above sea level), recently deglaciated soils. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 275(1653), pp.2793-2802.Reed, S.C., Cleveland, C.C. and Townsend, A.R., 2008. Tree species control rates of free-living nitrogen fixation in a tropical rain forest. Ecology, 89(10), pp.2924-2934.Reed, S.C., Cleveland, C.C. and Townsend, A.R., 2007. Controls over leaf litter and soil nitrogen fixation in two lowland tropical rain forests. Biotropica, 39(5), pp.585-592.Schmidt, S.K., Costello, E.K., Nemergut, D.R., Cleveland, C.C., Reed, S.C., Weintraub, M.N., Meyer, A.F. and Martin, A.M., 2007. Biogeochemical consequences of rapid microbial turnover and seasonal succession in soil. Ecology, 88(6), pp.1379-1385.Reed, S.C., Seastedt, T.R., Mann, C.M., Suding, K.N., Townsend, A.R. and Cherwin, K.L., 2007. Phosphorus fertilization stimulates nitrogen fixation and increases inorganic nitrogen concentrations in a restored prairie. Applied Soil Ecology, 36(2), pp.238-242.Cleveland, C.C., Reed, S.C. and Townsend, A.R., 2006. Nutrient regulation of organic matter decomposition in a tropical rain forest. Ecology, 87(2), pp.492-503.Bowker, M.A., Reed, S.C., Belnap, J. and Phillips, S.L., 2002. Temporal variation in community composition, pigmentation, and Fv/Fm of desert cyanobacterial soil crusts. Microbial Ecology, 43(1), pp.13-25.Reed, S.C., Capitosti, G.J., Zhu, Z. and Modarelli, D.A., 2001. Photochemical generation and matrix-isolation detection of dimethylvinylidene. The Journal of Organic Chemistry, 66(1), pp.287-299.Reed, S.C. and Modarelli, D.A., 1996. Conformational effects on the excited state 1, 2-hydrogen migration in alkyldiazomethanes. Tetrahedron Letters, 37(40), pp.7209-7212.**Disclaimer: The views expressed in Non-USGS publications are those of the author and do not represent the views of the USGS, Department of the Interior, or the U.S. Government.
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