Belowground ecology is recognized as one of the most critical and rapidly developing fields of ecology because it is still poorly understood, but vital to questions regarding impacts of climate change, carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and sustainable management of forests and other ecosystems.
The Belowground Ecosystem Group is centered in the Faculty of Forestry at UBC, but links scientists from several other units on campus, and other institutions in BC.
The primary goal of the Centre is to conduct interdisciplinary collaborative research towards the eventual scientific goal of linking structure and function in belowground ecosystems. This goal now appears to be achievable with the rapid pace of development of new molecular techniques that give us new insights into the structure of soil microbial and faunal communities, and how these relate to the soil processes that are fundamental to the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems.