Ellis, Erle

Ellis, Erle
Organization(s): 
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

My research investigates the ecology of anthropogenic landscapes and their changes at local and global scales. My early work studied nitrogen cycling and sustainable agroecosystem management in China's ancient village ecosystems, and later measured long-term changes in carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus storage and flux across China's village landscapes caused by the transition from traditional to industrially-based agricultural systems.

At present, my research has three main foci: understanding the global ecology of anthropogenic landscapes (anthropogenic biomes), the development of global synthesis tools that link human and ecological change processes at landscape scales with their global causes and consequences, and developing inexpensive tools for measuring and managing ecological pattern, process and change across anthropogenic landscapes. All of these come together in my main goal: informing sustainable stewardship of the biosphere in the Anthropocene.

My teaching includes Environmental Science & Conservation (120), Landscape Ecology (305), Applied Landscape Ecology (405/605), Biogeochemical Cycles in the Global Environment (412/612) and Field Methods in Geography: Environmental Mapping (485/685).

Research Interests: 
landscape ecology, global change, biogeochemistry & sustainable ecosystem management
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