DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Beyond the black box: understanding the relationship between microbial community structure and function under environmental stress and disturbance

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Soil microbial communities mediate global nutrient cycles and are an integral part of the cycling of greenhouse gases, yet disturbance can alter the functional dynamics and composition of these communities. Without an understanding of how microbial communities are structured and what factors most influence changes in these structures and ultimately function, scientists cannot fully understand the impacts of human disturbances such as global climate change on ecosystems. This research will assess the degree of coupling between ecosystem process rates and microbial community composition as revealed by genetic analyses of soil DNA. Measures of microbial community structure will be coupled with measures of specific ecosystem process rates that are associated with appropriate genetically based groupings. The coupling of these measures of microbial community structure and function under stress or disturbance is a first step towards incorporating microbial biodiversity into ecosystem models. This research will provide an opportunity for the co-PI to further her efforts to reach out to K-12 students in Kansas. The co-PI serves as a Fellow in NSF's GK-12 program at the University of Kansas, collaborating with a middle school biology teacher to incorporate real scientific inquiry experiences into her classroom. As part of an on-going effort to share scientific progress with schoolchildren, the co-PI presents her work at local schools via events such as an elementary school science night, the "Expanding Your Horizons" conference for girls in Kansas, and a lecture on global climate change at a local high school.