Collaborative Research: Controls over C sequestration: physiology vs. physics

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Understanding the global carbon cycle is a central issue facing ecosystem science because of carbon dioxide's (CO2) role in the greenhouse effect and climate change. One of the main stores of organic carbon on Earth is in soil, which contains more organic carbon than all the plants growing upon it. This project aims to better understand C-sequestration by evaluating the physical processes (diffusion & desorption) that regulate microorganisms' access to C, and how they use that C to make enzymes to acquire additional resources, and modify their immediate environment. A major focus of the work will be to explore how these processes are influenced by soil moisture and drought. The research will be done at the Sedgwick Reserve in California, and will use a combination of field experiments to manipulate plant inputs of fresh carbon and water inputs, laboratory studies to evaluate specific mechanisms involved in controlling the processes, and mathematical modeling to relate these fine-scale mechanisms to larger-scale dynamics.This project will help train interdisciplinary graduate student researchers, and will involve undergraduate students, bringing them into the research environment. For public outreach, the project will rely on Sedgwick Reserve?s center for public education. The investigators have developed presentations about soils, soil research, and their importance to society. They will update these with information from this project, and work with the docents to use in their educational programs. Members of the research team will continue their activities mentoring K-12 students with programs such as their "Soil's Alive!" demonstration of soil ecology for 10th graders from the local Santa Ynez Valley Union High School District,