Professional summary

Kelly has a BSc (Hons) in Honors Specialization Environmental Science from the University of Western Ontario in Canada.  She worked briefly as a biology research assistant at UWO, where she assisted in research on peat carbon fluxes. She then did a summer placement as a chemical technologist at the Dorset Environmental Science Centre in Canada, where she determined inorganic nitrogen contents of freshwater samples. Kelly then moved to the UK and in 2012 started her role as a biogeochemist in the Plant-Soil Interactions group at UKCEH Lancaster. She is also the Lab Coordinator for the Lancaster non-Chemistry labs.

Kelly researches the effects of climate and land use change on plant-soil carbon and nitrogen cycling. She specializes in trace gases analysis — CO2, CH4, N2O — isotope-labelling, and soil physical and functional analysis: enzyme activity, microbial biomarkers and more. Recent work explores fine-scale effects of minerals on soil organic carbon stabilization and persistence (LOCKED-UP) and also investigates the potential for Miscanthus and SRC willow to support Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) as a route to Net Zero.

Selected publications

Elias Dafydd M.O. et al. , (2024), Microbial and mineral interactions decouple litter quality from soil organic matter formation. Nature Communications, 15, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-54446-0

Elias Dafydd M.O. et al. , (2023), The potential to increase grassland soil C stocks by extending reseeding intervals is dependent on soil texture and depth. Journal of Environmental Management, 334, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.117465

Buckeridge Kate M. et al. , (2022), Microbial necromass carbon and nitrogen persistence are decoupled in agricultural grassland soils. Communications Earth & Environment, 3, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s43247-022-00439-0

Buckeridge Kate M. et al. , (2020), Environmental and microbial controls on microbial necromass recycling, an important precursor for soil carbon stabilization. Communications Earth & Environment, 1, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s43247-020-00031-4

Buckeridge Kate M. et al. , (2020), Sticky dead microbes: rapid abiotic retention of microbial necromass in soil. Soil Biology and Biochemistry, 149, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2020.107929

Mason Kelly E. et al. , (2019), Boreal forest floor greenhouse gas emissions across a Pleurozium schreberi-dominated, wildfire-disturbed chronosequence. Ecosystems, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-019-00344-2

De Long Jonathan R. et al. , (2019), Relationships between plant traits, soil properties and carbon fluxes differ between monocultures and mixed communities in temperate grassland. Journal of Ecology, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.13160

Semchenko Marina et al. , (2018), Fungal diversity regulates plant-soil feedbacks in temperate grassland. Science Advances, 4, http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aau4578

Malik Ashish A. et al. , (2018), Land use driven change in soil pH affects microbial carbon cycling processes. Nature Communications, 9, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05980-1

de Vries Franciska T. et al. , (2018), Soil bacterial networks are less stable under drought than fungal networks. Nature Communications, 9, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05516-7