CAREER: Research And Education Approaches To Integrating Microbiology And Ecosystem Functioning In Global Change Ecology

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

Ecosystems worldwide are undergoing rapid change due to human activities. In order to protect and sustain altered ecosystems, better understanding of the nature of the changes and how fast they are happening is needed. This type of research inherently crosses traditional science discipline boundaries; knowledge of chemistry or ecology or physics alone will not enable adequate understanding. Students and faculty receiving disciplinary training also need to learn how to communicate across disciplines as part of scientific teams. The significance of this CAREER project is that it will address both an important scientific issue, as well as helping foster new interdisciplinary research in global change ecology. The primary research goal of the project is to understand when, or whether, carbon sequestered in soils will act as a positive feedback to increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, thus reinforcing climate warming. Specifically, the research team will quantify the response of soil decomposer micro-organisms to climate change and measure CO2 output from the soil. The education goal of the project is to support interdisciplinary training for ecologists interested in global change issues. The broader societal significance of the project will be the impacts on interdisciplinary graduate student training and faculty development, as well as its potential importance for predicting ecosystem response to climate warming. Current predictions of changes in atmospheric CO2 do not include detailed treatment of the decomposer community. However, the response of the microbial community to warming could act as an important control over release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. This integrated research and education project will substantially increase our understanding of that control.