Graduate Student Email: melanie.merritt@uga.edu Lab: Chung Plant and Microbial Ecology Lab | Miller Plant Sciences Research Research Areas: Ecology & Global Change Research Interests: I am broadly interested in the impacts of climate change on plant community dynamics and ecosystem processes. My dissertation research uses greenhouse and growth chamber experiments, metabolomics, bioinformatics, and statistical modeling to investigate how rising CO₂ alters plant-soil-microbe interactions in dryland ecosystems. Grants: 2024 University of Georgia Degree Accelerator Award 2023 Sevilleta LTER Graduate Student Summer Fellowship: “Combining proteomics and fluorometric measurements of extracellular enzyme activity at elevated CO2 to improve future soil respiration predictions in a desert ecotone” ($4,000) 2023 University of Georgia Palfrey Grant for research support: “Disentangling the mechanisms that drive heterotrophic soil respiration at elevated CO2” ($1,250) 2022 University of Georgia Summer Travel Award ($500) 2022 New Mexico Native Plant Society: “Quantifying Distance Decay of Plant Soil Feedback in 2 NM Desert Species” ($3,000) 2021 Sevilleta LTER Graduate Student Summer Fellowship: “Combining metabolomics and microbiomics to understand mechanisms of plant-soil interactions mediating shrub encroachment under elevated CO2” ($4,000) Education Education: Admission to the University of Georgia Graduate School through the Integrated Plant Sciences Doctoral Program, 2019. B.S. Biology, California State University East Bay, 2019 Other Information Other Affiliations: Linkedin | Melanie Merrit
