Gavin McNicol

Gavin McNicol

PhD Candidate
Department:

I’m a 5th year PhD candidate in the Silver lab and I study wetland carbon biogeochemistry as part of the broader scientific effort to understand ecosystem feedbacks to the Earth’s climate system. In particular I study the release of carbon from wetlands as the greenhouse gas methane and consider: (i) the relative importance of different methane emission pathways in the wetland methane budget; (ii) the carbon sources for methane production; and (iii) the impact of methane emissions on net carbon emissions of restored wetlands. To address these questions I developed customized gas flux chambers to robustly estimate bubble release of methane from wetland sediments over annual timescales and have helped develop new capabilities for radiocarbon analysis of methane at the Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometery (CAMS) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

 Academia Website 

Publications

1. Yang W.H. McNicol G. Teh Y.A. Firestone M. K. Silver W.L. Gross methane production and oxidation along the soil depth profile in a drained peatland. Global Change Biology: In Prep.

2. Finstad K. M. McNicol G. Amundson R. Stabilization and persistence of desert surfaces with biological soil crusts. In Prep.

3. McNicol G. Silver W.L. Redox indices explain variation in gross methane production rates across distinct wetland soils.Biogeochemistry: In Prep

4.Hall. S. J. McNicol G. Natake T. Silver W. L. (2015) Large fluxes and rapid turnover of mineral-associated carbon across three humid tropical soil: Insights from paired 14C analysis. Biogeosciences 12: 2471-2487, doi: 10.5194/bg-12-2471-2015

5. McNicol G. Silver W. L. (2015) Non-linear response of carbon dioxide and methane to oxygen availability in a drained Histosol. Biogeochemistry 123(1-2): 299-306, doi: 10.1007/s10533-015-0075-6

6. Hall S.J. McNicol G. Silver W.L. An ecosystem approach to understanding patterns of C concentrations and turnover in humid tropical forest soils. Global Biogeochemical Cycles: In Review.

7. McNicol G. and Silver W. L. (2014) Separate effects of flooding and anaerobiosis on soil greenhouse gas emissions and redox sensitive biogeochemistry., J. Geophys. Res. Biogeosci. 119: 557–566, doi:10.1002/2013JG002433.