Maya Hofmann

Current projects:

Composition - Multifunctionality (COMPFUNC)

This study examines the aboveground and belowground community composition and ecosystem service provisioning in functionally diverse cover crop mixtures. By changing the seeding rate of three cover crop species from various functional groups (legume, brassica, and grass), we can understand how planting different proportions of a cover crop mixture impacts the root and shoot species abundance and their associated ecosystem services, and how this varies under different environmental conditions. We are measuring belowground services such as deep soil nitrogen retention, nitrogen fixation, and soil organic matter and carbon accumulation, and aboveground services such as pollinator resources, weed and pest suppression, and plant tissue C:N. This work aims to inform farmers of the ideal amount of seeds to plant of a given cover crop if they desire specific ecosystem functions, which will minimize unnecessary costs. It may also help to provide a general framework of how different cover crop functional groups interact as a community to contribute to overall ecosystem multifunctionality under various conditions.