Projects

Probing Iron Oxide Mineral Aggregation Behavior with Soil Organic Matters

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Xin Zhang

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

The goal of this project is to develop a fundamental understanding of iron oxide nanoparticle (NPs) aggregation mechanisms with soil organic matters (SOM). Heteroaggregation is a ubiquitous but…

Deciphering controls on metal migration within floodplains: The critical role of redox environments on metal-organic complexes

Lead Institution

Stanford University

Principal Investigator

Scott Fendorf

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is a major but poorly understood control over the mobility of micronutrient and contaminant metals in surface and subsurface systems. Variations in the chemical…

Sticky Roots -- Implications of Altered Rhizodeposition for the Fate of Mineral-associated Organic Matter in Natural Ecosystems

Lead Institution

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Principal Investigator

Marco Keiluweit

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

The proposed research aims to improve mechanistic understanding of links among rhizodeposition of reactive organic compounds by plant roots, microbial activity, and the stability of mineral…

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…

Characterization of Self-Incompatibility in the Bioenergy Grass Miscanthus

Lead Institution

HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology

Principal Investigator

Kankshita Swaminathan

Project type

FICUS Research

Miscanthus is a widely adapted high biomass perennial grass, commonly grown as an ornamental, that shows promise as a bioenergy crop. Most available Miscanthus lines, including the high yielding…

Plant-mycorrhizal-decomposer interactions under climate change: the role of shifting plant carbon allocation

Lead Institution

Boston University

Principal Investigator

Jennifer Bhatnagar

Project type

FICUS Research

Ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) that associate with the roots of live plants can control the growth rate of their hosts and the amount of nutrients and carbon (C) that are recycled through soil (e.g., as…

Characterization of simplified soil communities with high and low carbon use efficiency across differing moisture treatments

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Vanessa Bailey

Project type

FICUS Research

This project is directed under the "Terrestrial Microbial Carbon Cycling" SFA project awarded to Los Alamos National Laboratory. The goal of the SFA is to interrogate how soil microbial…

Integrative analysis of multi-omic data across NEON eco-climatic regions

Lead Institution

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Principal Investigator

Jeffrey Blanchard

Project type

FICUS Research

Our climate crisis, resulting from changes in interacting climate variables (temperature, rainfall, atmospheric chemistry) over the last century, has impacted all ecosystems on the surface of the…

Ecophysiology, inter-domain interactions, and biogeochemical impact of an aerobic methane-producing freshwater bacterium

Lead Institution

Montana State University

Principal Investigator

Roland Hatzenpichler

Project type

FICUS Research

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and understanding its sources and sinks is a core goal of the BER and DOE missions. Freshwater systems are responsible for approximately 16% of global methane…

Microbial nitrogen use efficiencies and their molecular controls in carbon sequestering soils

Lead Institution

United States Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service

Principal Investigator

Amisha Poret-Peterson

Project type

Exploratory Research

Present-day agriculture faces a major challenge to sustain food production in the face of a changing climate while mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. One way to rise to this challenge is to…