Element cycles across climates
Melillo earned his doctorate at Yale in 1977. His research has included northern Swedish shrublands, North American temperate forests and Amazonian forests and pastures, using experiments and models to investigate carbon and nitrogen responses to environmental and land-use change.
References: [1]
Warming soil in a forest
The Prospect Hill experiment at Harvard Forest began in 1991. Buried resistance cables maintain warmed soils about 5 degrees Celsius above controls. An additional disturbance-control treatment contains unpowered cables, separating installation effects from heating.
References: [2]
Why long observations matter
Early ten-year records showed declining additional carbon-dioxide release. The 26-year study published in 2017 identified four phases, with substantial soil-carbon loss alternating with periods of no detectable loss. Reduced release during one period therefore did not establish that the longer response had ended.
Microbes and climate feedbacks
The study linked this pattern with accessible carbon pools, microbial biomass, carbon-use efficiency and community composition. Melillo’s broader approach connects mechanisms measured in field experiments with models of terrestrial carbon cycling and long-term climate feedbacks.