Karina Schäfer

Assistant Professor, Ecology

Contact Info

Office: 410 Boyden Hall
Office Phone: TBA
Lab: 410 Boyden Hall
Lab Phone: TBA
E-mail: karinavr@andromeda.rutgers.edu

Personal/Lab Web Sites

Educational Background

Research Interests

• My primary research interests lie in the realm of global change and its effects on terrestrial ecosystems. To this point, my research has focused on refining carbon budgets of forest ecosystems through sapflow based canopy conductance. In my current project I am adapting and re-parameterizing the Canopy Conductance Constrained Assimilation model (4CA) which I originally developed for a pine ecosystem at Duke. Once the model has been parameterized and validated at a specific site, climate change scenarios can be tested by using predicted values and implementing into the model predicting the outcome for that scenario for that site.
• While it is extremely important to assess sinks of CO2 and changes to sink strengths that might be expected under rising CO2 conditions, I am now directing my research into the sources as well. I am currently working on expanding my work into urban ecology through eddy-covariance measurements. In collaboration with the Meadowland Environmental Research Institute I will be measuring CO2 fluxes in the Meadowlands to assess source and sink strength and devise a carbon budget. As CO2 has become a trading commodity, assessment of a city CO2 budget with a bottom up approach can help finding mitigating strategies (Stern Report 2007).

Selected Publications

• Schäfer K.V.R., Oren R., Ellsworth D.S., Lai C-T, Herrick J.D., Finzi A.C., Richter D.D., Katul G.G. (2003) Exposure to Enriched CO2 Atmosphere Alters Carbon Assimilation and Allocation in a Pine Forest Ecosystem. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 9, 1378-1400
• Schäfer K.V.R., Oren R., Katul G.G., Lai C.-T. (2002) Hydrologic balance in an intact temperate forest ecosystem under ambient and elevated CO2 concentration. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 8 (9): 895-911.
• Katul, G.G., C.-T. Lai, M. Siqueira, and K. Schäfer, J.D. Albertson, K. Wesson, D. Ellsworth, and R. Oren (2001): Inferring Scalar Sources and Sinks within Canopies using Forward and Inverse Methods. In: Observations and modeling of land-surface fluxes within hydrologic systems, ed., V. Lakshmi, J.D. Albertson, and Schaake J., American Geophysical Union, Washington D.C.
• Katul, G.G., C. T. Lai, J.D. Albertson, B. Vidakovic, K.V.R. Schäfer, C.I. Hsieh, R. Oren (2001): Quantifying the complexity in mapping energy inputs and hydrologic state variables into land-surface fluxes, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS 28: (17) 3305-3307.
• Lai CT, Katul G, Oren R, Ellsworth D, Schäfer K (2000): Modeling CO2 and water vapor turbulent flux distributions within a forest canopy. JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-ATMOSPHERES 105: (D21) 26333-26351.