Second Argonne Soils Workshop, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL, October 6-8, 2010

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Soil microorganisms are critical drivers of the global carbon, nutrient, water, and energy cycles. Yet, the challenges of observing belowground life have made it nearly impossible for scientists to learn how soil microbial communities function. Metagenomics, which uses advanced DNA sequencing and computation technologies, promises to revolutionize soil microbiology by allowing simultaneous measurement of the genes of all the organisms in the soil microbial community without the exceedingly difficult task of growing the organisms in the laboratory. However, using these new technologies in soil systems is not without significant challenges. The Second Annual Argonne Soils Workshop will bring together soil ecologists, microbiologists, molecular biologists, and computational scientists to discuss the latest progress in soil metagenomics. The theme for the workshop is "designing ecologically meaningful soil metagenomics experiments", and the goal is to shape the trajectory of future successful soil metagenomics research.This grant award will support the participation of early career scientists (students, postdoctoral researchers, and junior faculty) in the workshop. Recruiting efforts will include outreach to scientists from underrepresented groups in science. The workshop, which take place October 6-8 at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, IL, will provide opportunities for both invited speakers as well as contributed talks (selected from a pool of abstracts. In addition, this workshop will have a poster session to encourage more people, especially early career researchers, to present their work.