Serita Frey, professor of natural resources and the environment, has received a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) for a five-year study of how soil microbial communities respond to major ecosystem change. The grant of $2 million is to Frey and Kristina Stinson of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

“We’ll be looking at how the invasive species garlic mustard is impacting soil biota and nutrient cycling processes and evaluating different strategies for eradication of garlic mustard on DoD lands,” says Frey.

Soil fungi are particularly sensitive to the widespread invasive plant garlic mustard (Allaria petiolata). Two sets of experiments -- at Harvard Forest in Petersham, Mass., where Frey has an ongoing study, and on DoD lands across the Northeast -- will investigate how soil fungi repopulate an ecosystem after a garlic mustard invasion is eradicated. The results, says Frey, will advance fundamental knowledge about soil fungi in forest ecosystems and will improve resource managers’ ability to restore ecosystems in a time of rapid environmental change.