Projects

Elucidating the impacts of viruses on soil organic carbon and greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural peat soils

Lead Institution

University of Amsterdam

Principal Investigator

Paula Dalcin Martins

Project type

FICUS Research

Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on Earth. Despite their abundance, soil viruses are poorly characterized and viral impacts on the biogeochemical cycles in soils are vastly…

Parched: quantifying microbial ecophysiology and the fate of plant carbon during soil dry down

Lead Institution

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Steve Blazewicz

Project type

FICUS Research

In seasonally dry grasslands, soil microbes bloom during the plant growing season, survive extreme desiccation (water potential < -35 MPa) during long dry periods, and then rapidly mineralize soil…

Moisture and seasonal drivers of Inter-Kingdom metabolic interaction in a marginal soil rhizosphere

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

William Nelson

Project type

FICUS Research

Soil is a complex environment with numerous competing and cooperating populations contributing to overall ecosystem services. Plants provide most of the fresh organic carbon inputs through growth and…

Vertically and Size-Resolved Chemical Speciation of Aqueously Processed Organic Aerosols

Lead Institution

University of California, Berkeley

Principal Investigator

Allen Goldstein

Project type

FICUS Research

This proposal focuses on improving process-level understanding and model representation of 1) aerosol-cloud interactions and 2) aerosol processes affecting cloud lifecycle, properties, and/or…

Characterization of the Aerobiome during ARM Surface-Atmosphere Integrated Laboratory (SAIL) Campaign

Lead Institution

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Maria Zawadowicz

Project type

FICUS Research

Atmospheric bioaerosols are bacteria, viruses, spores or pollen and their fragments suspended in ambient air, and they can have wide-reaching potential impacts on air quality, climate, and public…

Characterizing primary biological aerosol particles during TRACER

Lead Institution

University of Michigan

Principal Investigator

Allison Steiner

Project type

FICUS Research

Atmospheric organic aerosols represent a large fraction of the total aerosol in the atmosphere and can derive from primary sources emitted directly from natural or anthropogenic processes or be…

Metabolic exchange between Spartina alterniflora and sulfur chemosymbionts of the plant's root microbiome

Lead Institution

Georgia Institute of Technology

Principal Investigator

Joel Kostka

Project type

FICUS Research

Vegetated coastal ecosystems are among the most intense carbon sinks in the biosphere, storing large amounts of carbon in their soils. Despite the fact that the root zone of coastal wetland plants…

Quantifying Differential Expression and Identifying Bottlenecks in Methanogenic Pathways

Lead Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Principal Investigator

Zaida Luthey-Schulten

Project type

FICUS Research

To facilitate our BER funded research to develop models of acetotrophic methanogenic microbes that predictively capture changes in cell behavior with single cell resolution due to dynamic…

Dissecting intraspecies diversity in fungal wood decay

Lead Institution

Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute

Principal Investigator

Ronald de Vries

Project type

FICUS Research

Basidiomycete fungi are essential for degradation of wood in natural eco-systems and therefore a crucial part of the global carbon cycle. Genomic and post-genomic studies into several basidiomycete…

Integrated biogeochemical modeling of microbial consortia mediating anaerobic oxidation of methane in dynamic methane hydrate-bearing sediments

Lead Institution

Oregon State University

Principal Investigator

Frederick Colwell

Project type

FICUS Research

Methane hydrate-bearing marine continental margin sediments are estimated to contain up to 2000 Pg carbon as methane, a potent greenhouse gas. This methane is released upon hydrate dissociation,…

Systems-level insights into carbon transformations in thawing permafrost by parallel high-resolution organic matter and microbial community characterizations

Lead Institution

The Ohio State University

Principal Investigator

Virginia Rich

Project type

FICUS Research

A fundamental challenge of modern environmental science is to understand how earth systems will respond to climate change. A parallel challenge in biology is to understand how information encoded in…

Mapping the metabolism of nutrient and carbon exchange in the plant-microbe symbiosis

Lead Institution

West Virginia University

Principal Investigator

Jonathan Cumming

Project type

FICUS Research

This research will identify the molecular responses that enable circumvention of phosphorus (P) starvation response in symbiotic plant-microbe communities. Using JGI/EMSL capabilities to assess…

Coupling Microbial Communities to Carbon and Contaminant Biogeochemistry in the Groundwater-Surface Water Interaction Zone

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

James Stegen

Project type

FICUS Research

The proposed study will integrate molecular data generated through a combination of JGI and EMSL capabilities to support research activities under the Subsurface Biogeochemical Research-Science Focus…

Uncovering the composition and function of the aquatic microbiome for duckweeds

Lead Institution

University of Tennessee

Principal Investigator

Sarah Lebeis

Project type

FICUS Research

Duckweed is a family of aquatic plants that are the fastest flowering plants in the world. They are capable of quickly converting wastewater into an easily harvestable, low lignin content biomass…

Integrated genomic/transcriptomic/secretomic study of plant-fungal interactions between pines and their symbiotic ectomycorrhizal fungi in the mushroom genus Suillus

Lead Institution

Duke University

Principal Investigator

Rytas Vilgalys

Project type

FICUS Research

We propose an integrated -omic study of symbiotic interactions between pines (Pinus spp.) and their ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) in the genus Suillus. We are developing the Pine-Suillus symbiosis as a…

Microbial controls on biogeochemical cycling in deep subsurface shale carbon reservoirs

Lead Institution

Colorado State University

Principal Investigator

Kelly Wrighton

Project type

FICUS Research

Terrestrial deep shales and their interfaces are carbon-rich environments that represent a significant component of the U.S. energy portfolio. Energy resources in these environments have recently…

Decoding DOM degradation: how does carbon source and sunlight exposure alter microbial metabolism and expression of genome-encoded metabolic degradation of permafrost organic matter?

Lead Institution

Oregon State University

Principal Investigator

Byron Crump

Project type

FICUS Research

Climate change in the Arctic is progressing rapidly, thawing large areas of permafrost that contain nearly half of the world's soil organic carbon. Conversion of this carbon pool to greenhouse…

Sensing External Metals by Outer Membrane Beta-Barrel Proteins

Lead Institution

Georgia Institute of Technology

Principal Investigator

Thomas DiChristina

Project type

FICUS Research

Metal-reducing bacteria drive a variety of environmentally important processes, including the biogeochemical cycling of carbon and metals, the bioremediation of radionuclides and organohalides, and…

Elucidating the Influences of Engineered N-glycosylation Motifs in Bacterial Biomass Hydrolyzing Enzymes upon Heterologous and Native Gene Expression, Secretion and Degradation in Aspergillus niger

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Jon Magnuson

Project type

FICUS Research

Aspergillus niger is a genetically tractable model organism for scientific discovery and a platform organism used in industry for the production of enzymes for biomass degradation and other…

Engineering morphology and secretion to enhance the productivity of fungal fermentations

Lead Institution

University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Principal Investigator

Steven Harris

Project type

FICUS Research

Enzymes such as cellulases and amylases play an essential role in the production of biofuels through their ability to convert biomass into fermentable sugars. The primary sources of these enzymes are…