Projects

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.

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…

Resolving carbon fluxes within microbial communities inhabiting full-scale bioenergy facilities

Lead Institution

University of British Columbia

Principal Investigator

Ryan Ziels

Project type

FICUS Research

Elucidating the physiology and metabolic function of uncultivated microorganisms in their in situ environment remains a critical challenge in microbial ecology. This knowledge gap obfuscates attempts…

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…