Allison L. Gill

Scholarship/Creative Work

We study how plants and microorganisms influence the cycling and storage of carbon and nutrients in terrestrial ecosystems, and often consider how these processes influence ecosystem responses to climate and environmental change. Our approaches are often integrative, and combine field and laboratory experiments with large-scale data analysis. Students interested in getting involved are welcome to reach out to Prof. Allison Gill any time!

*I am on leave and not teaching courses for the 2023-2024 academic year.

Left: American Geophysical Union Meeting in San Francisco, December 2023. Maddie Annis ’23, Katharine Cook ’24, Patrick Hodgson ’22, Allison Gill, Joanie Cha ’24, Josh Bruns ’25. Right: Summer 2023 research students Joanie Cha ’24, Ariana Oppenheimer ’26, and Katharine Cook ’24 near experimental site at Hopkins Memorial Forest.

Recent Publications

Hodgson, PR ’22, ML Annis ’23, AH Chen ’23, MR Fraser ’23, DJ Lee ’24, AI Stanton ’22, J Racela, and AL Gill. 2024. Biophysical controls on soil carbon cycling in a northern hardwood forest. Ecosystems https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-023-00890-w/.

Maillard, F, V Leduc, C Viotti, AL Gill, E Morin, A Reichard, I Ziegler-Devin, B Zeller, and M Buée. 2023. Fungal communities mediate but do not orient leaf litter decay trajectories in a temperate oak forest. Plant and Soil https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-06040-4

Gill, AL, RM Grinder ’21, CR See, FS Chapin,  LC DeLancey, MC Fisk, PM
Groffman, T Harms, SE Hobbie, JD Knoepp, JMH Knops, M Mack, PB Reich, and AD Keiser. 2023. Soil carbon availability decouples net nitrogen mineralization and net nitrification across United States Long Term Ecological Research sites. Biogeochemistry https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-022-01011-w.

Gill, AL, PB Adler, ET Borer, CR Buyarski, EE Cleland, CM D’Antonio, KF Davies, DS Gruner, WS Harpole, KS Hofmockel, AS MacDougall, RL McCulley, BA Melbourne, JL Moore, JW Morgan, AC Risch, M Schutz, EW Seabloom, JP Wright, LH Yang, SE Hobbie. 2022. Nitrogen increases early-stage and slows late-stage decomposition across diverse grasslands. Journal of Ecology 10:1376-1389.

Gill, AL, J Schilling, and SE Hobbie. 2021. Experimental nitrogen fertilization accelerates early-stage but slows long-term leaf litter decomposition globally. Ecology Letters 24: 802-811.

Honors Thesis Students at Williams College

Kimberly Rogers ’24 (ENVI, with José Constantine)

Joanie Cha ’24

Katharine Cook ’24

Dan Lee ’24

Maddie Annis ‘23

Angela Hsuan Chen ‘23

Molly Fraser ‘23

Patrick Hodgson ‘22

Aaron Stanton ‘22

Michael Armstrong ‘21 (Geosciences, with José Constantine)

Isabel Lane ‘21

Crystal Ma ‘21