Projects

Carbon signaling cascades that enable the carbohydrate-selective plant biomass degradation by brown rot fungi

Lead Institution

University of Minnesota

Principal Investigator

Jiwei Zhang

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Fungi are dominant microbes for carbon turnover of plant biomass in terrestrial systems. Some of them, namely brown rot fungi, evolved more efficient mechanisms than others, causing the fast…

Keystone mutualisms: understanding the role of fungi in organizing soil bacterial food webs

Lead Institution

Stanford University

Principal Investigator

Kabir Peay

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

The goal of our project is to create a predictive understanding of how fungi structure soil bacterial foodwebs. We will do this through an experiment designed around what is one of the fundamental…

Multiscale analysis to explore the molecular landscape of Sorghum bicolor stem over time and space

Lead Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Principal Investigator

Amy Marshall-Colon

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Sorghum bicolor is an important bioenergy crop because it has high nutrient and water use efficiency, and produces a large quantity of biomass that can be processed into ethanol for biofuels. Many…

Multi-watershed perturbation-response traits derived through ecological theory

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

James Stegen

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

This project will transform our ability to understand and predict how the influences of biogeochemical hot spots and hot moments on surface-subsurface systems are altered by disturbance. New theory…

Past is Prologue: Ancient Glass Analogues for the Long-Term Disposal of Vitrified Nuclear Waste

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Carolyn Pearce

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Microbes are ubiquitous in the terrestrial surface and have mastered the art of establishing equilibrium in their localized environment. Samples obtained during an excavation of Broborg, an ancient…

Why is Arctic tundra soil respiration carbon limited at low temperatures?

Lead Institution

University of Toledo

Principal Investigator

Michael Weintraub

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Soil microbial communities are active during much of the long Arctic winter, despite low temperatures, so overwinter microbial activity is important to global carbon (C) budgets. C-rich Arctic soils…

Dissecting Fe Driven Changes to Metabolism in Photosynthetic Eukaryotes

Lead Institution

Michigan State University

Principal Investigator

Stefan Schmollinger

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Iron (Fe) is an essential micronutrient for nearly all forms of life, because of its vital role in respiration, photosynthesis, central carbon metabolism, as well as other reactions involving…

Understanding the Roles of Phase State and Phase Separation in the Growth of Secondary Organic Aerosols

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Rahul Zaveri

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

We propose to investigate the fundamental roles of phase state and phase separation in the growth of secondary organic aerosols (SOA) formed from oxidation of selected volatile organic compounds (in…

Influence of hematite crystal face on organic ligand surface interactions with iron oxide/water interfaces studied using nonlinear spectroscopy techniques and molecular simulation methods.

Lead Institution

University of Puget Sound

Principal Investigator

Amanda Mifflin

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

The proposed work will examine the interfacial phenomena of the organic ligand acetohydroxamic acid (aHa) at the hematite/water interface and the molecular structure at organic/aqueous interface…

Identification of plant immune-active metabolic constituents of extracellular bacterial vesicles

Lead Institution

Duke University

Principal Investigator

Meta Kuehn

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Cells release vesicles to carry out a variety of functions, including both beneficial and antagonistic inter-kingdom communication. Bacteria release vesicles constitutively and by activation, and…

Molecular understanding of nutrient and organic sorption on model mineral surfaces

Lead Institution

Oregon State University

Principal Investigator

Kelsey Stoerzinger

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

This proposal aims to obtain molecular understanding of the sorption of nitrogen (N) oxyanions and model organic species on model mineral surfaces, and ultimately provide better constraints in…

Community metabolism and greenhouse gas fluxes in industrial salt ponds pre- and post-restoration

Lead Institution

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Susannah Tringe

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Coastal environments are a source of significant uncertainty in global climate models, and have historically been subjected to large-scale manipulations with substantial impact on the global carbon…

Identifying and understanding the function and importance of vertically transferred microorganisms within a bioenergy crop microbiome

Lead Institution

Michigan State University

Principal Investigator

Lisa Tiemann

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

To meet the goals of highly productive and sustainable bioenergy cropping systems, we need to explore all options for improving the efficiency of bioenergy crops, including optimizing the positive…

Measuring Physical, Chemical, and Optical Properties of Wildfire Aerosols Using Advanced Instrumentation Toward Improving Their Representation in Atmospheric Models

Lead Institution

Michigan Technological University

Principal Investigator

Lynn Mazzoleni

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

We propose an integrated experimental and modeling study of biomass burning aerosol rich in spherical particles - also known as "tar balls" - using the multi-modal micro-spectroscopy,…

Managing the cellular zinc economy: proteomics-enabled predictive understanding of zinc hierarchy

Lead Institution

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Crysten Blaby

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Zinc is an essential nutrient in biology. When encountering environments with suboptimal zinc availability, organisms initiate acclimation strategies that operate to increase assimilation and release…

Orchestrated chaos at the hyphal tip as fungi oxidatively decompose plant cell walls

Lead Institution

University of Minnesota

Principal Investigator

Jonathan Schilling

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Our research, supported by a new DOE BER Systems Biology grant (as of Sept. 2018), focuses on "brown rot" fungi that selectively extract sugars embedded in lignin. These fungi, we…

Physical and chemical properties of ice-nucleating particles in the Arctic

Lead Institution

University of British Columbia

Principal Investigator

Allan Bertram

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Ice-nucleating particles (INPs) influence the frequency and properties of clouds in the Arctic, which, in turn, influences climate. Hence, to improve predictions of climate in the Arctic, information…

Decrypting inter-cellular communication within the soil microbiome by eavesdropping on pairwise signaling between bacteria

Lead Institution

University of Pittsburgh

Principal Investigator

Erik Wright

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

The soil microbiome is composed of a dense network of interacting cells that play a pivotal role in nutrient cycling and plant growth. Decrypting how soil microorganisms communicate through a wide…

Visualizing the chemical plasticity of plant roots in response to soil biotic and abiotic properties and developing a better framework to predict fine root decomposition

Lead Institution

Clemson University

Principal Investigator

Vidya Appukuttan Suseela

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Fine roots of Plants represent a major contributor to soil organic carbon storage. Despite its fundamental role in global carbon cycling, we know little about the factors controlling the residence…

Systematic characterization of heterologous protein secretion in Aspergillus niger

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Jon Magnuson

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Economical and sustainable production of biofuels and bioproducts from biomass requires efficient utilization of the carbon contained within, thereby creating a need for enzyme cocktails used in the…