Soil Organic Matter in Temperate AgroecosystemsLong Term Experiments in North America

E.A. Paul, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, Michigan State University, has served as Chairperson of Crop and Soil Sciences at Michigan State University and as Chair of the Department of Plant and Soil Biology, University of California - Berkeley. Before that he was Professor of Soil Science at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada. His major fields of interest shown in the extensive papers published have included microbial ecology, soil organic matter dynamics, nutrient cycling, and plant microbial interactions. National and international committees and professional society appointments have helped both his science and his profession. He has taught extensively at the undergraduate and graduate level and advised many successful students both in Canada and the U.S. Books edited include volumes 3, 4, and 5 of Soil Biochemistry published by Marcel Dekker. The textbook, Soil Microbiology and Biochemistry, co-edited with F.E. Clark and published by Academic Press has extensive readership and is being translated into three languages other than English. He is a fellow of the Canadian Society Soil Science, American Society of Agronomy, Soil Science Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a recipient of the Soil Science Society of America Research Award.

Keith Paustian, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scientist at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory (NREL), Colorado State University. Prior to his appointment at NREL in 1993, he was a Research Assistant Professor at the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station, Michigan State University (1989-1993) and Research Scientist at the Department of Ecology and Environmental Research, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden (1987-1989).

Edward T. Elliott, Ph.D., is the Associate Director of the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory and holds a joint appointment as Professor in the Soil and Crop Sciences Department at Colorado State University. He is the Director of the University Office of Ecosystem Research and Management. His B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Soil Science were obtained at Colorado State University and his Ph.D. in Ecology is from the University of Georgia, where he studied freshwater ecology.

C. Vernon Cole, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scientist with the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University. He was a Research Soil Scientist with the Agricultural Research Service, USDA from 1950 until his retirement in 1993. He contributed to significant advances in the knowledge of phosphorus chemistry in the first years of his career. A practical soil test developed from this research has been used worldwide and is the basis for identifying phosphorus deficient soils in much of the neutral and slightly weathered soils of the world.