Staff and Center Associates

Dr. Margaret Carreiro
Associate Professor of Biology
University of Louisville
Phone: (502) 852-2093
Email: m.carreiro@louisville.edu

Dr. Carreiro received her Ph.D. in Botany/Mycology in 1989 from the University of Rhode Island, and both her B.A. and M.A. in Biology from Boston University, Boston, MA..  She is an expert in nutrient cycling and ecosystem ecology of terrestrial habitats, particularly those in urban and suburban landscapes

Her research interests include: 1) understanding how cities and urban sprawl affect natural ecosystems, especially forests; using forests in cities as predictors of the effects of global environmental change on regional forest health and resilience; and 3) understanding how warmer temperatures, air pollutants like nitrogen and sulfur compounds and exotic species affect plants, microbes and soil chemistry which in turn affect ecosystem processes of nutrient cycling, primary production and plant community change.  She currently is supervising students in her laboratory determining the plant community composition of oak forests along an urban-to-rural land use gradient from Iroquois Park to Bernheim Research Forest to discover whether land use affects the plant species that are there.