Rebecca L. McCulley
105 Plant Sciences Building
1405 Veterans Drive
Lexington, KY 40546-0312
Last Revised: Jan 16th, 2025
Professional Biography
Areas of Interest: My lab is broadly interested in the structure and function of grass and shrub-dominated ecosystems. We explore how human land use interacts with climate, soils and biota in these ecosystem types to impact the storage and cycling of nutrients at both local and regional spatial scales.
Examples of research questions our lab addresses:
- How do grasslands respond to climate and land use change?
- What are the ecosystem consequences of fungal endophyte infection in tall fescue?
- What controls litter decomposition in aridlands?
- How do invasive species affect grassland structure and function?
Experience
2016-Present, Professor, University of Kentucky
2016-2017, Director, Tracy Farmer Institute for Sustainability and the Environment
2006-2016, Assistant, Associate Professor, University of Kentucky
2002-2006, Post-Doctor Scholar, Duke University
Education
B.A., Rice University, 1995
M.S., Texas A&M University, 1998
Ph.D., Colorado State University, 2002
