Projects

Carbon cost of plant-microbe interactions under drought

Lead Institution

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

John Dunbar

Project type

FICUS Research

Plant survival during environmental stress is a major driver of ecosystem carbon (C) cycling, and plant-microbe interactions are central to plant stress survival. However, quantifying how much C…

Bacterial:Fungal Interactions in Soil: Developing a mechanistic understanding of nutrient exchange between soil microbes and the resulting consequences for C/N cycling

Lead Institution

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Patrick Chain

Project type

FICUS Research

Little is known about the interactions between bacteria and fungi and how they function in the cycling of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) in soils. Here we seek to characterize at the molecular level the…

Model Development on Using Clay Membranes for Arsenic Removal from Drinking Water

Lead Institution

University of Missouri - Columbia

Principal Investigator

Baolin Deng

Project type

Exploratory Research

The ability of fine-grained clay minerals to act as semi-permeable membranes and restrict the passage of dissolved solutes is well documented. This unique property of clay, often referred to more…

Discover ectomycorrhizal fungi-triggered macro- and micronutrient reactions and movements: From cell to ecosystem function

Lead Institution

University of Florida

Principal Investigator

Hui-ling Liao

Project type

FICUS Research

As the critical members of forest microbiome, ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) play important roles in forest ecosystems. EMF provide their tree hosts with macro- and micronutrients in exchange for…

Beyond the rhizosphere: Microbial functional traits through the whole soil profile and their response to warming.

Lead Institution

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Eoin Brodie

Project type

FICUS Research

The pathways of carbon transport and loss through and from soils--soil organic matter (SOM) depolymerization to dissolved organic carbon and mineralization to carbon dioxide (CO2)--are fundamentally…

Expanding the functional metagenomics toolkit with CRAGE and CRISPR-Cas9 in taxonomically diverse microbial host chassis

Lead Institution

University of British Columbia

Principal Investigator

Steven Hallam

Project type

FICUS Research

Plant and microbial biomass offers a renewable alternative to energy and materials produced from oil. The industrial scale production or biorefining of sugars and aromatic compounds from biomass…

Gene function discovery in photosynthesis: A multi-omics approach

Lead Institution

University of California, Berkeley

Principal Investigator

Sabeeha Merchant

Project type

FICUS Research

Photosynthesis is the defining characteristic of plants enabling the capture and transformation of sunlight into bioenergy and has been the focus of plant research for centuries. Remarkably, whole…

Model Development on Using Clay Membranes for Arsenic Removal from Drinking Water

Lead Institution

University of Missouri - Columbia

Principal Investigator

Baolin Deng

Project type

Exploratory Research

Use of clay membranes for arsenic removal from drinking water has been explored at the University of Missouri-Columbia, supported by a CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation. Arsenic is a…

MBE growth of epitaxial anatase TiO2 (001) on STO(001) on Si(001) and characterization of TiO2 films

Lead Institution

University of Washington

Principal Investigator

Kelli Griffin

Project type

Exploratory Research

The proposed visit to the EMSL facilities at PNNL is for the observation of the oxygen plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy (OPA-MBE) deposition process of epitaxially grown anatase TiO2 on SrTiO3…

Rhizosphere effects on soil organic matter decomposition and microbial activity in a tropical rainforest under drought: unearthing aggregate- to ecosystem-scale contributions to carbon cycling through whole-ecosystem stable isotope labeling

Lead Institution

University of Arizona

Principal Investigator

Malak Tfaily

Project type

FICUS Research

Interactions at the plant-soil-microbe nexus are difficult to track given the complex networks of species and metabolites involved, in addition to the general challenges to studying heterogeneous and…

Prediction of response in soil microbiome carbon utilization to changing moisture conditions

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Jason McDermott

Project type

FICUS Research

The goal of this project is to attain a systems level understanding of the soil microbiome and its phenotypic response to changing moisture through a tractable, spatially explicit examination of the…

Fabrication and Characterization of Functional Nanostructured Materials

Lead Institution

University of California, San Diego

Principal Investigator

Sungho Jin

Project type

Exploratory Research

Recent years have witnessed the rapid progress in the fabrication of functional nanostructured materials. We have succeeded in making a variety of nanomaterials including nanoparticles, multiwalled…

Fabrication and Characterization of Carbon Nanotube-based Composites

Lead Institution

University of California, San Diego

Principal Investigator

Sungho Jin

Project type

Exploratory Research

Recent years have witnessed the rapid progress in the fabrication of functional nanostructured materials. We have succeeded in making a variety of nanomaterials including nanoparticles, multiwalled…

Second Harmonic Generation from Organic Water/Air Interfaces

Lead Institution

University of Colorado

Principal Investigator

Alan Maccarone

Project type

Exploratory Research

Investigate the formation of organic radicals following ozonation of long chain hydrocarbons.

Determining Protein Interactions Involving Essential Genes of Unknown Function

Lead Institution

University of Delaware

Principal Investigator

Mark Blenner

Project type

Exploratory Research

The DOE's goal of advancing biological and environmental research for the development of renewable and sustainable sources of biofuels and bio-based chemicals from biomass relies on our ability…

Protemic Analysis of Naturally Ocurring Methane Oxidizing Archaeal Communities

Lead Institution

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Principal Investigator

Edward DeLong

Project type

Exploratory Research

Microbial mediated anaerobic methane oxidation (AOM) in marine sediments represents a significant but poorly understood carbon sink throughout the world's oceans. Mounting geochemical and…

The composition, transport, and fate of soil organic matter and pyrogenic carbon after prescribed burning

Lead Institution

University of Georgia

Principal Investigator

Rebecca Abney

Project type

Exploratory Research

Prescribed burning has exponentially increased in the United States over the past five years due to growing research into its use for land management and recent changes in legislation. While the…

Synthesis and Characterization at Atomic Level of Novel Nanocrystalline Metal Oxide Structures

Lead Institution

Nanjing Normal University

Principal Investigator

Zhongqing Yu

Project type

Exploratory Research

This project will focus on two objectives: 1) controllable formation of cooper oxide (Cu2O) quantum dots (QD) using oxygen plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy (OPA MBE); 2) analysis of grown…

Characterizing the impact of soil phosphorus on soil organic matter stabilization

Lead Institution

Ohio University

Principal Investigator

Jared DeForest

Project type

Exploratory Research

Phosphorus (P) is an essential nutrient for life, but its role in mediating important biogeochemical cycles is often overlooked or misunderstood due to the emphasis on carbon (C) and nitrogen (N)…

Biomolecular linkages between detrital inputs and soil organic matter decomposition across temperate forest regions

Lead Institution

Oregon State University

Principal Investigator

Kate Lajtha

Project type

Exploratory Research

Limited knowledge of the molecular mechanisms behind soil organic matter (SOM) stabilization and destabilization processes impedes improving models of earth systems and global carbon dynamics, as…