U.S.-Germany Program: Dissertation Research on Trace Gas Fluxes in a Woodland Ecosystem

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This award supports Joanne Romagni, a Ph.D. student of Professor Thomas Nash at Arizona State University, for a ten week period of dissertation enhancement research at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany. She will work in the Department of Biogeochemistry with Drs. Franz Meixner and Juergen Kesselmeier and members of their research groups. The specific objectives of her research visit are to learn methodologies to measure trace nitrogen gases, to gain additional experience with trace sulfur gas analyses, and to construct and test gas sampling chambers appropriate for her research on lichens and leaves. This experience will be very useful in her research to quantify sources and sinks of nitrogen and sulfur trace gases in a blue oak woodland ecosystem in California. Such information will improve our understanding of the biogenic origins of atmospheric trace gases which play a role in climate change. The Max Planck Institute for Chemistry is one of the most respected research institutes in the world in the area of atmospheric chemistry and the interactions between the atmosphere and the biosphere. The scientists with whom Ms. Romagni will work are experts in the study of trace gas fluxes and global biogeochemical cycling of nitrogen and sulfur. They have developed new and efficient micrometeorological methods to monitor trace nitrogen and sulfur gases in vegetation and soils. Gaining experience with these techniques will directly benefit Ms. Romagni's doctoral dissertation research on trace gas fluxes in a woodland ecosystem.