Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations (C-DEBI)

暗能量生物圈调查中心 (C-DEBI) - NSF 科学技术中心，用于解决海底下的范围、功能、动态和影响。地球的“深层生物圈”包括地球上的各种地下栖息地，例如大陆上的矿山、含水层和土壤，以及海底以下的沉积物和火成岩。据估计，地球上总生物量的近一半存在于深层生物圈中。技术障碍将地下生物圈地点的检查限制在相对较少的地点，并且仅限于浅层钻探。这些限制阻碍了深入的生物圈研究，使数据集向环境可及性倾斜，并阻碍了更准确的全球人口普查的发展。最大的潜在地下生物群落也是最难接近的：海底生物圈估计在火成洋地壳和沉积物两种环境中蕴藏着地球上所有生物量的三分之一。今天，我们对这些地下微生物群落的有机体或这个独特生物圈内的关键非生物和生物过程知之甚少。然而，人们对地下地球和生物学的关注正在增加，并且可用于采样、监测和实验的技术在过去十年中得到了显着改进。智力价值：该中心将为大型多学科科学家小组提供一个框架，以探索有关地球地下环境深处生命的基本问题。 C-DEBI 的基本科学问题涉及探索和发现、揭示限制海洋以下地下生物圈的过程以及对地球系统的影响。这个深层生物圈中存在什么类型的生命，有多少，它们是如何分布和分散的？促进或限制生命的物理化学条件是什么？有哪些重要的氧化还原过程？它们对人类来说是独特的还是重要的？这个生物圈如何影响全球能源和材料循环，特别是碳循环？最后，我们能否辨别出这样的生命是如何在海底地质环境中进化的，以及这与我们星球上生命起源的想法有何关系？该中心将由世界一流的研究人员团队领导，他们为研究的智力和技术挑战带来不同的学科基础：卡特里娜·爱德华兹（南加州大学）； Andrew Fisher（加州大学圣克鲁斯分校）、James Cowen（夏威夷大学马诺阿分校）、Steve D'Hondt（罗德岛大学）和 Jeff Wheat（阿拉斯加大学费尔班克斯分校）。这些领导者以及中心的大量合作者带来了分子生物学、微生物生态学、水文地球物理学、微生物生物地球化学、地质学、沉积物和热液地球化学、建模、理论和技术/仪器开发方面的专业知识。更广泛的影响：C-DEBI 将开发用于研究这一领域的新技术和概念模型；培训和教育跨学科科学家，他们将定义和追求这门科学的未来并激发公众的兴趣；并与国际海洋钻探企业有效对接：综合海洋钻探计划。研究与教育、国家和国际项目的协调和整合，以及观测系统和实验技术的开发和部署将是该中心的重点。 C-DEBI 将加速 PI、博士后、研究生和本科生之间的跨学科合作，以揭示深层生物圈的性质和重要性。该中心将培训本科生和研究生，并为各机构提供奖学金支持。现有课程和新课程将使用 C-DEBI 科学来教授有关地球系统和深层生物圈中发现的不同生命形式的基础知识。将利用公开讲座、博物馆展览和海上科学活动来让公众了解他们的世界并激发他们的兴趣。 C-DEBI 将培训教师并大力投资，以扩大我国从事科学技术职业的人员的多样性。该中心将利用所有合作机构现有的从 K-8 到本科课程的教育、推广和培训项目的多样性，帮助吸引代表性不足的群体参与科学，并且该中心将直接与少数族裔服务的州立大学和社区学院合作，应对这一挑战。 牵头机构是美国最多元化的校园之一，合作机构在吸引西班牙裔、非裔美国人、夏威夷原住民和太平洋岛民以及美洲原住民方面都做好了充分准备。 C-DEBI 科学家小组最近在支持研究生项目中的性别多样性方面表现出色，首席研究员所在的部门单位也是如此。 C-DEBI 将专门针对科学领域女性的职业发展，以及招募女性进入海洋科学领域。 调查人员在吸引该级别的西班牙裔和美国原住民学生方面有着良好的记录。

Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations (C-DEBI) - A NSF Science and Technology Center for resolving the extent, function, dynamics and implications of the sub-seafloor. The Earth's "deep biosphere" includes a variety of sub-surface habitats on Earth, such as mines, aquifers, and soils on the continents, and the sediments and igneous rock below the ocean floor. It is estimated that nearly half of the total biomass on Earth resides in the deep biosphere. Technological hurdles have limited examination of the sub-surface biosphere sites to relatively few locations and only shallow drilling. These limits have hindered deep biosphere research, skewing data sets towards environmental accessibility, and precluding the development of a more accurate global census. The largest potential subsurface biome is also the least accessible: the sub-seafloor biosphere which is estimated to harbor one third of all biomass on Earth in the two environments of igneous ocean crust and sediments. Today, we know far too little about the organisms of these sub-surface microbial communities or the critical abiotic and biotic processes within this unique biosphere. However, attention to the sub-surface Earth and biology, is increasing, and the technologies available for sampling, monitoring, and experiments has dramatically improved in the last decade. Intellectual Merit: This Center will provide a framework for a large, multi-disciplinary group of scientists to pursue fundamental questions about life deep in the sub-surface environment of Earth. The fundamental science questions of C-DEBI involve exploration and discovery, uncovering the processes that constrain the sub-surface biosphere below the oceans, and implications to the Earth system. What type of life exists in this deep biosphere, how much, and how is it distributed and dispersed? What are the physical-chemical conditions that promote or limit life? What are the important oxidation-reduction processes and are they unique or important to humankind? How does this biosphere influence global energy and material cycles, particularly the carbon cycle? Finally, can we discern how such life evolved in geological settings beneath the ocean floor, and how this might relate to ideas about the origin of life on our planet? This Center will be led by a world-class team of investigators who bring different disciplinary foundations for the intellectual and technical challenges of the research: Drs. Katrina Edwards (University of Southern California); Andrew Fisher (University California, Santa Cruz), James Cowen (University of Hawai'i, Manoa), Steve D'Hondt (University of Rhode Island), and Jeff Wheat (University of Alaska, Fairbanks). These leaders, with their large group of collaborators in the Center, bring expertise in molecular biology, microbial ecology, hydro-geophysics, microbial biogeochemistry, geology, sediment and hydrothermal geochemistry, modeling, theory, and technology/instrument development.Broader Impacts: C-DEBI will develop new technologies and conceptual models for studying this realm; to train and educate the interdisciplinary scientists who will define and pursue the future of this science and excite the public; and to interface efficiently with the international ocean drilling enterprise: the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. Coordination and integration of the research an education, the national and international projects, and the development and deployment of observing systems and experimental technology will be a strong focus of the Center. C-DEBI will accelerate interdisciplinary collaboration between PIs, post-docs, graduate and undergraduate students to uncover the nature and importance of the deep biosphere. The Center will train undergraduate and graduate students and provide fellowship support across the institutions. Existing courses and new ones will use C-DEBI science to teach fundamental knowledge about Earth systems and different life forms discovered in the deep biosphere. Public lectures, museum exhibits, and science-at-sea activities will be employed to inform and excite the public about their world. C-DEBI will train teachers and invest significantly in broadening the diversity of those who pursue science and technology careers in our nation. The Center will use the diversity of existing education, outreach and training programs, from K-8 through under-graduate programs, at all partnership institutions to help attract under-represented groups to science, and the Center will directly engage minority serving state universities and community colleges to meet this challenge. The lead institution is one of the most diverse campuses in the country, and partner institutions variously are well poised with regard to attracting Hispanics, African Americans, Native Hawai'ians and Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans. The C-DEBI group of scientists has been excellent in supporting gender diversity in graduate programs in the recent past, as do the departmental units in which the lead investigators sit. C-DEBI will specifically target career advancement for women in science, and the recruitment of women into ocean sciences. The investigators have a good record with regard to attracting Hispanic and Native American students at this level.