My research involves understanding the Earth as a system, especially all the factors that affect aquatic/marine environments. I have a strong background in Earth Science, Environmental Science, Oceanography, Limnology, and Ecology. This gives me a unique perspective on ecosystems as I factor in everything from large scale environmental drivers (like El Niño-Southern Oscillation) all the way down to individual scale ecological interactions. I am particularly interested in how environments and ecosystem functioning are changing due to human influence (including climate change), and how these changes may act as feedbacks. Because a single drop of seawater contains as many as 1 million microorganisms, I have also looked at microbial functioning when assessing ecosystems. Microbes are the engines that drive Earth's biogeochemical cycles after all. My career goal is to teach students and the community about the Earth System, including how ecosystem functions are affected by the Anthropocene.
“If I could do it all over again, and relive my vision in the twenty-first century, I would be a microbial ecologist. Ten billion bacteria live in a gram of ordinary soil, a mere pinch held between thumb and forefinger. They represent thousands of species, almost none of which are known to science. Into that world I would go with the aid of modern microscopy and molecular analysis. I would cut my way through clonal forests sprawled across grains of sand, travel in an imagined submarine through drops of water proportionately the size of lakes, and track predators and prey in order to discover new life ways and alien food webs.” - E.O. Wilson, Naturalist, 1994
© Jesse Wilson (2020)