TERRER LAB · MIT CIVIL & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
How much carbon can land hold, and for how long?
We combine field measurements, satellites, and machine learning to quantify the terrestrial carbon sink — and how climate change is reshaping it.
57
peer-reviewed papers
7,000+
citations
29
h-index
since 2016
carbon-cycle research
Selected findings
Nature Climate Change · 2025
Plant nutrient acquisition shapes the land carbon sink
PNAS · 2025
Seed dispersal disruption limits tropical forest regrowth
Nature · 2021
A trade-off between plant and soil carbon storage under elevated CO₂
Nature Climate Change · 2019
Nitrogen and phosphorus constrain CO₂ fertilization of plant biomass
Science · 2016
Mycorrhizal association as a primary control of the CO₂ fertilization effect
What we study
The Terrer Lab works on terrestrial ecosystem ecology — how climate change and human activity reshape ecosystems, and how ecosystems in turn shape the climate. We synthesize large datasets of field observations and remote sensing to understand the global carbon cycle.
Field measurements
Repeated soil and biomass sampling at sites across the world’s biomes.
Satellites & remote sensing
Global observations of vegetation, carbon, and land-cover change from space.
Machine learning & synthesis
Meta-analysis and statistical models that scale field data to the globe.
Latest news
Join the lab
We are looking for curious students and researchers in ecology, data science, and remote sensing.