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Carl Bernacchi

Profile picture for Carl Bernacchi

Contact Information

1201 W. Gregory Drive
196 E.R. Madigan Laboratory
Urbana, IL 61801

Research Areas

Professor

Research Description

Impacts of climate change on crop physiology, energy fluxes between the atmosphere and plant canopies, carbon sequestration, crop canopy responses to stress

The overall focus of my research is to understand the impacts of atmospheric and climatic change on crop species important to the Midwestern U.S. Included in these analyses are global change scenarios as well as natural variations in growth conditions over a wide range of temporal scales.

Specific research includes:

  1. determining how vegetation responds to atmospheric change with emphasis on energy fluxes between the atmosphere and plant canopies,
  2. measuring net ecosystem carbon exchange using eddy covariance techniques to estimate the carbon sequestration potential of Midwest agriculture, and
  3. working toward a mechanistic understanding of crop canopy responses to stresses, such as drought or insect infestation. In addition, I am also involved in numerous projects that focus on soybean physiological responses to growth in elevated CO2 and O3.

Specific research experiments in which I am involved include SoyFACE and the Ameriflux network. My participation with this project includes running two eddy covariance flux towers in Bondville, IL.

Education

M.S., Bradley University
Ph.D., University of Illinois

Additional Campus Affiliations

Professor, Crop Sciences
Professor, Plant Biology
Affiliate, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology

Recent Publications

Time, A., Gomez-Casanovas, N., Mwebaze, P., Apollon, W., Khanna, M., DeLucia, E. H., & Bernacchi, C. J. (Accepted/In press). Conservation agrivoltaics for sustainable food-energy production. Plants People Planet. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10481

Wolf, A., Chang, E., Kantola, I. B., Blanc-Betes, E., Masters, M. D., Marklein, A., Moore, C. E., Bernacchi, C. J., & DeLucia, E. H. (2024). Validating assumptions in calculating carbon dioxide removal by enhanced rock weathering in Kantola et al., 2023. Global change biology, 30(1), Article e17031. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.17031

Aspray, E. K., Mies, T. A., McGrath, J. A., Montes, C. M., Dalsing, B., Puthuval, K. K., Whetten, A., Herriott, J., Li, S., Bernacchi, C. J., DeLucia, E. H., Leakey, A. D. B., Long, S. P., McGrath, J. M., Miglietta, F., Ort, D. R., & Ainsworth, E. A. (2023). Two decades of fumigation data from the Soybean Free Air Concentration Enrichment facility. Scientific Data, 10(1), Article 226. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02118-x

Bernacchi, C. J., Ruiz-Vera, U. M., Siebers, M. H., DeLucia, N. J., & Ort, D. R. (2023). Short- and long-term warming events on photosynthetic physiology, growth, and yields of field grown crops. Biochemical Journal, 480(13), 999-1014. https://doi.org/10.1042/BCJ20220433

Burroughs, C. H., Montes, C. M., Moller, C. A., Mitchell, N. G., Michael, A. M., Peng, B., Kimm, H., Pederson, T. L., Lipka, A. E., Bernacchi, C. J., Guan, K., & Ainsworth, E. A. (2023). Reductions in Leaf Area Index, Pod Production, Seed Size and Harvest Index Drive Yield Loss to High Temperatures in Soybean. Journal of experimental botany, 74(5), 1629–1641. Article erac503. https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erac503

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