Collaborative Research: Coupled biological and photochemical degradation of dissolved organic carbon in the Arctic

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About half of the carbon that moves from land to streams, rivers, and lakes is lost to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Carbon from land is converted to CO2 mainly by microbial respiration and exposure to sunlight. Both processes happen in sunlit surface waters, but little is known about how they interact to produce CO2. For instance, previous research has shown that sunlight exposure can either increase or decrease microbial respiration. In addition, there is little known about how composition of microbial communities may influence microbial respiration. Understanding how microbes and sunlight interact is particularly important in the Arctic where thawing permafrost soils will release large amounts of carbon from land to water. Advancing our understanding of loss of this carbon to the atmosphere is critical to understanding the global carbon cycle. This project takes advantage of recent advances in microbial genomics and carbon chemistry to improve understanding of carbon cycling in Arctic freshwaters. This research will also engage high school teachers and students in scientific discovery and application. The PIs also plan to provide undergraduates with research opportunities through this project.Determining the controls on coupled photo-bio conversion of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) to CO2 is essential for understanding the drivers of CO2 fluxes to the atmosphere from inland waters in the Arctic. To gain this understanding, this project will use experiments to answer three questions: (Q1) How is microbial metabolism controlled by DOC chemistry? This question will be answered with incubations of microbial communities with DOC leached from surface soils and deeper permafrost soils from two dominant arctic landscapes. Microbial pathways of DOC conversion to CO2 will be identified by measuring microbial gene abundance and the expression of those genes, and molecular formulas of DOC that are consumed and produced during incubations identified by mass spectrometry; (Q2) How does DOC exposure to sunlight alter how microbes convert DOC to CO2? This question will be answered by exposing leached soil DOC to sunlight; (Q3) How does the longer-term adaptation of microbial communities affect the rate of DOC conversion to CO2? This question will be answered by measuring microbial abundance, respiration, production, and community composition (species) during the incubations. A detailed understanding of these processes is critical because conversion of permafrost soil carbon to CO2 has the potential to create a positive and accelerating feedback to atmospheric CO2 levels and resulting environmental changes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.