Jeff Amthor is a plant ecophysiologist interested in the fundamental biochemical and biophysical limits to primary production in terrestrial ecosystems, with particular focus on crop yield.  He pays special attention to plant respiration and has expertise in mechanistic modeling of plant photosynthesis, growth, and development.  Much of his computer simulation modeling and experimental research addresses plant physiological responses to changes in climate and atmospheric composition (increasing CO2 concentration and tropospheric  O3 pollution) and how those plant responses can affect the carbon and water balances of terrestrial ecosystems.

Schooling

Jeff earned an MS in agronomy from Texas A&M University (1979-1980).  Then  a PhD in plant physiological ecology from Yale University (1981-1987) with supervision from Herb Bormann and Bill Reifsnyder (the meteorologist, not the long-distance runner).  The experimental components of his PhD dissertation research (1985-1986) — conducted at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell University with supervision by Leonard Weinstein — quantified effects of O3 concentration on Phaseolus vulgaris leaf respiration.  While enrolled in the Yale Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Jeff also for a few years (1984-1986) was User Consultant and Technical Support Specialist at the Yale Computer Center (YCC).  At the YCC he joyfully spent hours each day immersed in IBM Job Control Language (JCL) and programming bugs (and got paid for it!).

Jeff & Marnie, Hyde Park, Sydney c. 2012

Post-PhD employment

After completing his dissertation, Jeff was appointed Lecturer in Forest Ecophysiology at Yale.  He later held research positions at the U.S. Water Conservation Lab (USDA-ARS; with Bruce Kimball, Paul Pinter, et al.); the University of California, Davis (with Bob Loomis);  the Woods Hole Research Center (now Woodwell Climate Research Center); Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

During most of 2001–2010, Jeff was Ecologist at U.S. Dept. of Energy (Office of Science) headquarters where he developed and managed national research programs addressing interactions between the climatic system and both managed and unmanaged terrestrial ecosystems; during 2002–2003 he was detailed to U.S. Dept. of Commerce/NOAA in support of the 13-agency U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), reporting directly to Jim Mahoney the CCSP Director and U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere.

Jeff was Professor of Agronomy at The University of Sydney during 2010–2013 (Honorary Professor during 2013–2016).  He is now a  Principal Scientist at the catastrophe modeling company AIR Worldwide/Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ: VRSK), focusing on effects of extreme weather on (i) major crops and (ii) wildfires.

Notable programs and initiatives developed in the DOE Office of Science

(1) With a rather forward-looking perspective at the time (2004),  the Scaling Across Levels of Biological Organization in Ecological Systems Initiative was established by Jeff to support the goal of explicitly linking ecosystem research and modeling with the then rapidly advancing capabilities being developed in genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics.  Initiative objectives were establishment of theoretical and empirical bases of whether, and how, information obtainable at the level of genomes and proteomes of species or communities could be used to explain, and predict, effects of environmental changes on the structure and functioning of important ecosystems.   

(2) In 2004/2005, Jeff conceived and implemented a major reorganization of the  National Institute for Global Environmental Change (NIGEC) — established by direction of Congress in FY 1990 — creating the DOE National Institute for Climatic Change Research (NICCR).  Four Regional Centers were created, managed by Pennsylvania State University (Northeastern Region), Duke University (Southeastern Region), Michigan Technological University (Midwestern Region), and Northern Arizona University (Western Region).

(3) In response to a lack of whole-ecosystem (i.e., air and soil) controlled-warming experiments — the general practice at the time was to control temperature of air (plant shoots) or soil (with plant roots) but not both — in 2007 Jeff's Program for Ecosystem Research began development of experimental (controlled) warming of both air and soil with the goal of clearly determining whether warming per se affected terrestrial vascular-plant or animal species abundance, or even existence, near either the "warm" or the "cool" edges of their ranges.

(4) Probably of most significance, and over a several-year period, Jeff created the framework for the Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments (NGEE), designating (a) arctic tundra as the immediate research target followed by (b) tropical forest.  Jeff's plan for major DOE support of NGEE, which was to be based on large-scale, coordinated teams and facilities, rather than a collection of individual investigator projects, was endorsed by the Department in early 2010.  Specifications for related engineering requirements for in situ, controlled manipulations of soil and air temperature and air CO2 concentration were designated by Jeff in 2009, with funding to support the National Labs in design development.  The ongoing, long-term multi-agency/multi-laboratory flagship Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Changing Environments (SPRUCE) field experiment — in the southern ecotone of a black spruce–Sphagnum spp. bog forest in northern Minnesota — is a related product of Jeff's programmatic (re-)direction and support.

Selected publications (also see Google Scholar and other selected publications)

The presentation "Crop Respiration: How Efficient, Why Efficient, When Efficient — An Overview of Theory and Reality" at the 2013 Crop Science Society of America symposium "Crop Respiration – The Other Half of the Carbon Balance" (slides only)

The 14-minute presentation "Is agronomy the most resilient of all human endeavours?" at the University of Sydney Research Symposium 2011 "Resilience: Can our environment keep bouncing back?" (slides and audio)

ORCID 0000-0001-8601-403X