Erika is a soil ecologist applying the study of below-ground food-webs to soil health and quality assessments, centred on the Atlantic region of Canada and the boreal biome. Through her doctoral project and work with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (with Dr. Adrian Unc and Dr. Claudia Goyer) she determined and interpreted morphological and molecular soil nematode community compositions as functional markers of soil quality across the four Atlantic provinces of Canada.

Her research has highlighted the increasing need for reliable functional indicators of soil quality in Canada and the global North, and that nematode-based indicators are strong contenders to reflect functional changes induced by land use, land-use change, and climate change. She is currently a Research Scientist in Forest Soils and Climate Change at Natural Resources Canada.

Research interests

• Northern land use and land-use change
• Soil food-webs and associated carbon and nutrient dynamics
• Biological indicators of soil quality for sustainable agricultural management
• Free-living and plant-parasitic nematode communities

Education

• PhD in Environmental Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland
• Certificate in nematode identification, Wageningen University and Research Centre
• MSc in Boreal Ecosystems and Agricultural Sciences, Grenfell Campus, Memorial University
• BSc in Environmental Science, Grenfell Campus, Memorial University