Projects

Geochemical controls on soil resiliency to carbon loss following permafrost thaw in Alaskan soils

Lead Institution

University of California, Davis

Principal Investigator

Rebecca Lybrand

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Global air temperature rise exacerbated by greenhouse gas emissions endangers Arctic carbon previously protected by permafrost. The resiliency of soil landscapes to carbon loss will be determined by…

The Root of the Matter: Soil Carbon Mobilization in the Rhizosphere

Lead Institution

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Principal Investigator

Marco Keiluweit

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

The exploratory work we propose aims to improve mechanistic understanding of links among rhizodeposition of organic compounds by plant roots, microbial growth and activity, and the strength of…

Microbe-Mineral Interactions for Rare Earth Recovery

Lead Institution

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Yongqin Jiao

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Lanthanides are composed of 15 metallic chemical elements (La-Lu). Combined with Sc and Y, they are often collectively known as the rare earth elements (REEs). Although lanthanides are ubiquitous in…

Assessing the environmental activity of ultra-small cells with deuterium oxide labeling and proteomics

Lead Institution

Oregon State University

Principal Investigator

Stephen Giovannoni

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Reports of ultra-small cell and streamlined genomes have flooded into the field of microbiology, providing support for the idea that the prevalence of streamlined bacteria in nature has been…

Spatiotemporal Controls on Organic Matter Availability and Decomposition Rates across Floodplain Sediments

Lead Institution

Stanford University

Principal Investigator

Scott Fendorf

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Although depositional environments such as floodplains are key regulators of ecosystem carbon storage and downstream metal loadings, they are not very well represented in earth system models…

Unraveling the catabolism of lignin-derived compounds in white-rot fungi (part II)

Lead Institution

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Davinia Salvachua Rodriguez

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

White rot fungi (WRF) are the most efficient organisms for the depolymerization and mineralization of lignin to CO2 and H2O in Nature and thus, WRF play a pivotal role in carbon cycling. Lignin…

Integrating thermodynamic and microbial mechanisms to understand coupled controls of carbon and nitrogen on hyporheic zone metabolism

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

James Stegen

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Terrestrial-aquatic interfaces are widely recognized as active zones of organic matter metabolism, and hyporheic zones in particular are critical in determining the fate of organic matter globally…

Molecular characterization of dissolved organic matter components facilitating the transport and transformation of mercury

Lead Institution

Syracuse University

Principal Investigator

Charles Driscoll

Project type

Exploratory Research

Browning of surface water has been observed across the northeastern United States and northern Europe. This trend has generally been attributed to increases in dissolved organic matter following the…

Probing Microbial Interactions and Coordinated Trophic Responses in Biological Soil Crusts

Lead Institution

University of Mississippi

Principal Investigator

Erik Hom

Project type

FICUS Research

Arid and semiarid lands comprise about 40% of the global land surface, and yet they are among the least understood ecosystems. Cryptogamic or biological soil crusts (BSC) are the dominant ground…

Experimental Impacts of Climate Warming and Ocean Acidification on Metabolic Function and Blue Carbon Accumulation by Eelgrass

Lead Institution

Old Dominion University

Principal Investigator

Richard Zimmerman

Project type

FICUS Research

The goal of this study is to elucidate physiological and genetic responses of eelgrass (Zostera marina L.) populations to the combined effects of ocean acidification and climate warming in order to…

Microbial metabolic activity and biogeochemical reaction networks in redox cycled alluvial systems

Lead Institution

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

Principal Investigator

Kristin Boye

Project type

FICUS Research

Redox conditions and related switches in microbial metabolic activities exert primary control over the stability of carbon, nutrient, and contaminant stocks in alluvial systems, such as floodplains…

Validation of metabolic models, extrapolated from the reference sugar catabolism genetic network of Aspergillus niger by using an orthology-based approach, of evolutionarily diverse fungi

Lead Institution

Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute

Principal Investigator

Ronald de Vries

Project type

FICUS Research

Sugar conversion through central carbon catabolism in filamentous fungi is a complex process that involves many pathways, some with shared and/or redundant components. During growth on plant biomass,…

Hydrobiogeochemical feedbacks across seasonal and decadal time-scales: implications for solute fate and transport in riverbed ecosystems

Lead Institution

Colorado State University

Principal Investigator

Michael Wilkins

Project type

FICUS Research

Upland rivers host exceptionally strong linkages between the terrestrial and aquatic elemental cycles. Due to their abundance and tight connections with terrestrial ecosystems from which they receive…

Consequences of plant genetic variation and the surrounding microbiome on Sphagnum associated nitrogen fixation

Lead Institution

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

David Weston

Project type

FICUS Research

We propose a collaborative project with JGI and EMSL to determine how Sphagnum peatmoss and microbial genetic variation interact to influence community function at elevated temperatures. As part of a…

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…