Nina Wurzburger, a professor at the Odum School of Ecology, has focused her research on understanding how and why forests change over time. Growing up near Monterey pine forests in California sparked her interest in the natural world and led to a career investigating forest ecosystems.
Wurzburger’s current work examines how forests respond to human disturbances. “Sometimes forests don’t recover,” she said. “The mechanisms that explain whether a forest grows back or not are often hidden below ground.” She notes that changes in forests can impact their ability to provide timber, filter water, offer habitat, and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
As an ecosystem ecologist, Wurzburger studies interactions between living organisms and their environment. “Many things are difficult to predict if we don’t consider the living and non-living interactions,” she explained. “The world that we live in is very much influenced by interactions. For example, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dictates climate, which then affects how plants grow and use carbon dioxide.”
Her research includes three projects focusing on different aspects of forest change. One project looks at fire management in eastern U.S. forests and its effects on soil health. Historically, fires were common due to both natural causes and cultural practices by Native people. However, modern policies have often excluded fire from these landscapes for safety reasons, leading to ecological shifts.
“Fire is an integral part of ecosystems and their dynamics,” Wurzburger said. “And now there is a focus on bringing fire back to forests, to make them look more like they once did. But what happens to the ecosystem when you bring fire back?” Early results from her team suggest that prescribed burning reduces overall soil carbon but may promote long-term storage of carbon compounds.
“All carbon is eventually going to be released back into the atmosphere. It’s just a question of on what timescale,” she said. “If more carbon can be put into a form that turns over every thousand years — as opposed to every year — then we’re in a much better position for keeping it out of the atmosphere.”
Another project investigates rhododendron shrubs in Appalachian forests. While native and slow-growing, rhododendron has become more prevalent following disturbances such as disease outbreaks or clear-cutting operations that open up forest canopies.
“All of these things point to a human-created disturbance regime favoring this shrub, so it’s time to understand what it does to the forest ecosystem,” Wurzburger stated.
She also studies rhododendron’s unique root fungi partnerships—shared only with related species like azalea—which help move nutrients and affect below-ground processes that remain difficult for scientists to observe directly.
“Soil is opaque, it holds a lot of tiny microbes, and there’s lots of complexity,” she noted. “That’s where all the exciting questions are, for me.”
Wurzburger’s third project takes place in Big Sur on California’s coast—a region threatened by tree diseases such as sudden oak death combined with severe wildfires fueled by drought conditions. In this setting, ceanothus shrubs thrive after wildfires due to their heat-triggered seeds and nitrogen-fixing roots.
“The redwood forests are beautiful, iconic,” Wurzburger said. “We’re trying to identify the below-ground processes that explain why the combination of disease and wildfire are shifting the ecosystem from a forest to a shrubland.”
Reflecting on her path into ecology during her undergraduate years studying environmental science—and particularly after taking courses about trees and soil—Wurzburger recalled: “Then I took the class [on soil], and it completely changed my world view… And now just about everything we do in the lab is related to soil in some way.”
Looking ahead, Wurzburger will lead efforts at the Odum School as they hire new faculty members specializing in ecosystem ecology across terrestrial and aquatic systems.
“I’m very excited to recruit a new generation of ecosystem ecologists who are working on critical issues that face the world,” she said. “They have an opportunity to benefit from the legacy of the Odum School and take us in a new direction.”
