Research

John Mischler - Research Statement

I have broad interests surrounding the feedbacks between ecosystem health and human health through agricultural systems.  Agriculture is one way in which people intensively interact with Earth’s ecosystems that also has strong and relatively easy-to-see implications for human health and wellness.  Recently much of my focus has been on grazing systems and subsistence agricultural systems, though I also interact substantially with industrial agriculture considering my current context in northern Indiana and the huge lever this represents across the landscape.  I am trained in the natural sciences (ecology & geosciences); I am a biogeochemist focusing on the cycling of nitrogen, phosphorus, and carbon within and through soils, tissues, and the atmosphere.  I have also had significant experience in disease ecology and the interaction between vector-borne parasites and anthropogenic change.  In addition I use GIS/Remote Sensing in many aspects of my work and have employed survey-based research methods when appropriate.  I have started to become interested in microbial diversity, especially as it applies to soil carbon sequestration.  In addition I have begun to cultivate an interest in education research employing the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) Nexus within environmental and sustainability majors.  In addition to the FEW Nexus, other paradigms that shape my work include Agroecology (science, movement, practice) One Health and the Land Sharing / Land Sparing continuum.  

Currently Active Projects:

1. The effects of burning and grazing on soil carbon accrual in grassland ecosystems (American Midwest and Laikipia Kenya)

2. Mycotoxin contamination of food & crops and related environmental drivers (Kongwa Tanzania)

3. Community food assets and public perceptions - Elkhart county Indiana

4. Disease Ecology and Agriculture - various locations

5. Agroforestry planting guilds - ramifications for microbial diversity and nutrient cycling

6. Sustainability Education and the Food Energy Water Nexus 

Grassland Burning & Grazing

This is a multi-institutional collaboration (Notre Dame, Mpala Research Station, Goshen College).  We are testing the effects of fire, cattle grazing, and the interaction between fire and cattle grazing on grasslands - both in the American Midwest and in Kenya.  Our field sites in the USA are in Goshen, IN and at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center in Wolf Lake, IN.  Similarly we have burn plots within the Kenyan Long-term Exclosure Experiment (KLEE) at the Mpala Research Station in Laikipia, Kenya. In Indiana we are using cattle as our grazers and two levels of burning frequency (every year; every three years) - replicated seven times at each site (one clay-rich, one sand-rich).  In Kenya the KLEE experiment has 6 grazer treatments achieved through electrified exclosure fences ((i) no grazers, (ii) cattle only, (iii) meso herbivores only [small to mid body size - excludes megaherbivores like giraffe & elephants], (iv) meso + cattle, (v) meso + mega, and (vi) meso + mega + cattle). Within each of these grazing treatments we have initiated two burn frequencies.

We are measuring soil biogeochemistry (soil organic matter, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus), soil microbial diversity, and root turnover at depth (via 1m minirhizotron tubes installed in the soil) across the full suite of grazing treatments and fire regimes.  Our goal is to determine constraints on organic matter accrual in managed grasslands - specifically the contributions of surface litter vs. in-situ microbial necromass.  We have been collecting soil samples in Indiana since 2017 and have been bringing students to Kenya to collect since 2023 as part of an NSF REU.  This project is tailor-made for student involvement both with sample collection as well as lab analyses.  The results of this research has implications both for the management of prairie strips in the American Midwest as well as ranches and small-holder community grazing areas in Kenya.    

As a note on emerging research areas - I will be spending this spring semester as a Fulbright fellow in Indonesia within the Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) region.  Islands in this region are dominated by subsistence agriculture, are subject to a semi arid climate (2 to 3 month rainy season; long dry season), and use grazing and fire as common management tools across the landscape. I hope to develop additional research on grazing systems on the islands of Timor and Sumba with local partners. 

Mycotoxins in Tanzania

This is a multi-institutional collaboration between Cornell University, The Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST), and Goshen College.  Mycotoxins (toxins created by fungi) are a major contributor to ill health (especially children) throughout the world.  Our collaborators have collected a 2000+ person dataset detailing mycotoxin concentrations in blood, urine, and in food. Field collection was completed in 2022 but there are huge amounts of data still to be analyzed.  I have been working with students using GIS techniques to determine (i) what environmental and socio-economic factors correlate with high mycotoxin levels and (ii) how are mycotoxins distributed across the landscape.  The likelihood of mycotoxins being present in a standing crop (maize and peanuts) in a given year are strongly dependent on temperature and rainfall.  Specifically, increased plant stress is related to increased mycotoxin risk and may be modulated by soil organic matter content.  This research project hits multiple sustainable development goals and is suitable for many students since data and imagery are available for analysis immediately.

Food Assets in Elkhart, IN

We are about to finish up a 2 year study involving both community surveys and GIS work that provide a descriptive glimpse of our community, what assets are perceived as crucial by the community, and which neighborhoods have been surrounded by deficient food sources (food swamps).  We started this project during COVID as a way to understand what stresses local folks were under with regards to food access and culturally relevant food availability.  Our research indicates that households in our service area are particularly concerned about the availability of low cost meat options - particularly chicken.  While community resources such as community gardens were located within the service area, time is a considerable factor in individuals’ ability to access these resources.  

Disease Ecology

I continue to work in tick-borne disease systems both in the USA and in Kenya.  In the USA my tick work has centered around understanding the distribution of tick-borne disease as it relates to land use - especially along edges in fragmented landscapes.  In Kenya my students have been investigating the interaction of burning, grazing, and climate within the KLEE plots (mentioned above) on tick populations.  I continue to use trematode parasite systems (within aquatic snails) as a model to understand the effects of parasitic infection on ecosystem nutrient cycling and vice versa.  In the past I had set up a snail lab to investigate the effects of schistosome infection on the respiration rates of their snail hosts (biomphalaria glabrata).  I access infected snails through the Schistosomiasis Resource Center.  I would like to resume some of this organismal-level work to address the metabolic cost of infection and the role of food quality on the cercarial shedding rate of infected snails. Students can join this research either in the field, in the lab, or both.  Since snails are invertebrates students can field-collect organisms with ease.

Agroforestry

Over the last 7+ years I have been managing a 6 acre agroforestry plot here at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center.  These plants are now established enough that I have just started to initiate study of the effects of different food tree/bush combinations on soil microbial communities and soil nutrient cycling.  This month I am completing deep core sampling of agroforestry guilds and hope to install minirhizotron tubes to compare perennial plant combinations.

FEW Nexus

With the explosion of transdisciplinary programs at colleges and universities across the country, the FEW nexus has received renewed attention as one possible framework to scaffold this type of thinking for students.  I am interested in both larger concept papers on the topic as well as specific case studies.  I am heavily involved in a national FEW Nexus community of practice and am in the middle of writing up a case study of poultry systems as illustrated through the FEW Nexus and the Ecological Society of America’s 4DEE framework.  I will also be working with Indonesian institutions extensively to implement nexus concepts within their teaching farms.