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

由于人类活动，世界范围内的生态系统正在发生快速变化。为了保护和维持已改变的生态系统，需要更好地了解变化的性质及其发生的速度。这种类型的研究本质上跨越了传统科学学科的界限；光有化学、生态学或物理学的知识并不能使我们有充分的理解。接受学科培训的学生和教师也需要学习如何作为科学团队的一部分进行跨学科交流。这个CAREER项目的意义在于，它将解决一个重要的科学问题，同时也有助于促进全球变化生态学领域新的跨学科研究。该项目的主要研究目标是了解土壤中封存的碳何时或是否会对大气中二氧化碳（CO2）的增加起到积极的反馈作用，从而加剧气候变暖。具体而言，研究小组将量化土壤分解者微生物对气候变化的响应，并测量土壤的二氧化碳排放量。该项目的教育目标是支持对全球变化问题感兴趣的生态学家进行跨学科培训。该项目的更广泛的社会意义将是对跨学科研究生培训和教师发展的影响，以及它对预测生态系统对气候变暖的反应的潜在重要性。目前对大气二氧化碳变化的预测不包括对分解者群落的详细处理。然而，微生物群落对变暖的反应可能是控制温室气体向大气释放的重要因素。这个综合研究和教育项目将大大增加我们对这种控制的理解。

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.