NAFSE STudent webinar: Transformation of Manganese During Vegetation Burning

Thursday, October 16, 2025 12-1pm ET

Students will share their work via webinar and connect with the fire and forestry community to establish productive working relationships.

Speaker: Shyrill F Mariano

Bio: Shyrill is a PhD student at the State University of New York at Albany (SUNY Albany) in Dr. Rixiang Huang’s group. Her current research aims to improve our understanding on how transformation of nutrients during burning later impacts postfire soil process and forest recovery. Shyrill received her Bachelor’s in Geology and Master’s in Marine Science from the University of the Philippines.

Webinar: Wildfires are becoming more frequent and intense with changing environmental conditions, challenging our current understanding about how forests recover after fire. To unravel this big picture, we need to look closely at how fires disrupt important processes in the ecosystem. My research focuses on one small but powerful piece of this puzzle: manganese (Mn). Mn is an essential micronutrient that microbes in the forest floor use to help break down organic matter, which in turn releases nutrients that new plants need to grow. In our study, we looked at how Mn in plants changes when it turns into ash, both in controlled lab burns and in wildland fires across six very different ecosystems around the world. In this talk, I’ll share what we’ve learned so far about how fire changes Mn, what kinds of Mn are found in ash, how Mn influences ash interaction with organic matter, and what these changes could mean for post-fire forest recovery.