Smith Lab News
Oct. 13, 2026: Dan's first chapter published in Environmental and Experimental Botany
PhD student Daniel Owusu Kwakye had the first chapter of his thesis published
in Environmental and Experimental Botany. The paper is titled
"Growth temperature and soil nitrogen supply independently regulate plant
physiological functioning" and is open access. You can find the paper
at this
link.
The paper describes a controlled environment experiment that manipulated growth air
temperature (3 levels) and soil nitrogen supply (9 levels) to test how the factorial
combination of temperature and soil nitrogen influence plant physiology, with
a strong emphasis on photosynthetic capacity. From theory, we expect increasing
air temperature to reduce photosynthetic capacity because temperature-driven increases
in enzyme kinetics reduces demand to build and maintain nitrogen-heavy photosynthetic
enzymes like RuBisCO. However, studies on this effect are mixed. We also expect increasing
soil nitrogen availability to increase photosynthetic capacity because it is cheaper for
the plant to obtain nitrogen to build photosynthetic enzymes. So, this study looked at whether
soil nitrogen availability could explain the differential temperature effect seen in other
studies.
We found that growth air temperature (negative) and soil nitrogen supply (positive)
were independent regulators of photosynthetic capacity. That is, there was no strong
interactions between the two treatments. This finding may suggest that models of photosynthetic
capacity do not need to include this interaction.
But the question still remains: why do studies differ in the direction and magnitude of
the temperature response of photosynthetic capacity? Stay tuned for more from Dan on this!
The full link to the paper is
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0098847226001632
Aug. 28, 2026: The lab moves HQ to UNL
The lab has moved its headquarters to the University of Nebraska - Lincoln.
Nick has accepted as position as an Associate Professor in the School of Biological
Sciences and Davidson & Fuller Chair in Life Sciences at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln.
This marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for the lab and comes with an accompanying
name change: the lab will now rebrand slightly as the Physiology for Understanding and
Knowldge in Ecology (PhUnKY) Lab at UNL. The primary foci of the lab will remain
unchanged, but the new locations brings new opportunities for collaborations with
UNL scientists and development of new project in Nebraskan and adjacent ecosystems.
Daniel Owusu Kwakye (PhD student) has transferred to UNL, where he will continue working towards
his PhD. Evan Perskowski (postdoc), Snehanjana Chatterjee (PhD student), Monika Kelley (PhD student),
and Isabella Beltran Triana (PhD student) will stay at TTU to finish their projects and
degrees.
The lab will be looking for a new postdoc and lab manager, as well as graduate students
to join at UNL. The advertisements for these will be out soon, but please fee free to
reach out to Nick ahead of time if you are
interested.
On to the next adventure!
Aug. 7, 2026: Gwen and Clara graduate!!!
Gwen and Clara graduated with their Masters (w/ thesis) this summer! They each successfully defended
strong theses, which are now available through TTU and will soon be submitted for peer-review
publication.
Gwen's thesis developed a flora for Kimble County in Central Texas. This flora greatly expands
what is known about the plants in the area and includes both a comprehensive species list
as well as abundance data for select locations that can be revisited in future years.
The flora is important, as many species are endemic to the Edward's Plateau region of
Texas and can help with conservation efforts. In addition, the flora will serve
future courses at the TTU Center at Junction.
Clara's thesis used an observational gradient in Central Texas to better understand
the links between climate, soil, mycorrhizal colonization, and plant traits. Her results showed
that patterns are clear and understandable when examined at the community scale, indicating
that both plasticity and species turnover drive these relationships. The results are
critical for understanding and predicting the future success of these plants in Central Texas.
Congrats Gwen and Clara!!
Jul. 28, 2026: The lab has a large showing at #ESA2026
The lab will be giving a large number of presentations at the 2026 Ecological Society
of America Meeting.
On Tuesday, Evan will be discussing some very exciting initial results
from our growth chamber tracer experiment that resolves mechanisms of allelopathy-induced
mutualism breakdown impacts on native plant physiology. Ava will be discussing
the split pot design used for that experiment and Niyomi will be discussing some of the physiology
results that Evan will not be able to get to in his talk. Finally, Garrison will
be showing results from his first chapter examining the temperature responses of the
Cytochrome b6f complex.
On Wednesday, Monika and Dan will be presenting work from their theses. Monika
will discuss field results on community-level responses to eutrophication. Dan will be
showing his first chapter results on the influence (or lackthereof!) of soil nitrogen
availability on temperature acclimation.
Finally, on Thursday, Gwen will be presenting her thesis work, which developed
a flora for the region of the Edward's Plateau in Junction, TX. Nick will be showing new work
on simulating optimal photosynthetic strategies. Come check it out!
