A soil ecologist studies how living and nonliving factors (and their interactions) affect the functioning of the soil environment.
During my middle and high school years, I studied arts. The creativity, originality and sense of balance that you try to achieve in a work of art can definitely help develop skills needed during the many periods of trial and error and experimentation needed to do good science.
How do soil fauna (animal life) affect the decay of litter debris (leaves and wood) in different ecosystems?
A soil respirometer is a machine used to measure the change of gases (most commonly, carbon dioxide and oxygen) as produced or consumed by the organisms living in the soil.
I discovered that soil fauna significantly affect the breakdown of leaves and wood in both temperate and tropical ecosystems.
Like many students doing a B.S. in Biology, I thought I would continue studies in the medical field. In fact, towards the end of my degree, I was accepted into medical schools. However, working at an ecophysiology laboratory researching mangrove and other forested ecosystems and digging earthworms from extremely hard-dried soils in pastures gave me a different view. Towards the end of the summer (as I also visited the hospitals where I was most likely to work and practice during med school), I discovered I wanted to become a soil ecologist, not a doctor!
