MCA: Incorporating Carbon Use Efficiency into Strategies for Ecosystem Restoration

MCA：将碳利用效率纳入生态系统恢复战略

• 批准号: 2218954
• 负责人: Kathryn Docherty
• 金额: $ 34.77万
• 依托单位: Western Michigan University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-12-01 至 2024-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2218954&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: MCA; Incorporating; Carbon; Use; Efficiency

The central United States once contained the largest tallgrass prairie ecosystem on Earth. Through agricultural and urban development, most of this ecosystem - and the benefits it provided to soil health, carbon storage and biodiversity - were lost. Today, ecosystem restoration is an important way that land managers and scientists can work together to return ecosystems such as tallgrass prairies to the North American landscape, along with the benefits they provide. Typical restoration strategies focus on seeding native plants. That approach overlooks the millions of soil microorganisms that were also disrupted through tilling and fertilization. Research shows that many processes fall short of their potential in restored systems because the amounts and types of microorganisms in the soil remain permanently altered. Critically, this affects how much carbon can be retained in the restored soil. Reframing restoration goals so that they focus on managing ecosystems that act as optimal carbon sinks is an important step toward balancing greenhouse gas emissions and reversing the effects of environmental change. The first step to accomplishing this goal requires greater understanding of how basic management choices affect soil microbial carbon use. This project leverages an existing NSF-funded study that includes two metrics (land area and number of plant species) and will examine the efficiency with which soil microorganisms use carbon in these different treatments. This mid-career advancement award (MCA) will provide support for a scientist at a critical career juncture to advance their research by learning new techniques for measuring an important trait of microorganisms. Results of this work will be communicated broadly with six regional land management organizations in southwest Michigan.The main goal of this research is to understand how plant richness and restoration area influence carbon use efficiency (CUE), soil bacterial and fungal community composition, function and heterogeneity in restored prairies. These goals will be addressed using the Conservation Lands Experiment (CLE), an ongoing research project at Kellogg Biological Station Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site. The CLE maintains 12 sites ranging from 0.3 – 3.2 hectares, which were planted with low- and high-richness plant seed mixes in 2015. It is an ideal experiment in which to test applied questions about how restoration strategies influence microbial diversity and heterogeneity using a spatially-explicit sampling design. Next-generation DNA sequencing and analyses, putative functional pathway prediction and other common soil metrics are standard procedures for the PI, but the value of these variables will be enhanced when coupled with rate-based measurements of carbon fluxes. This project expands the PI’s research expertise by providing time and resources to learn 18O-isotope-based CUE assays with an expert colleague at the University of New Hampshire. Opportunities for networking and collaboration are expected to lead to interdisciplinary projects that have real-world applications and involve non-profit land management organizations. Ultimately, outcomes will include new restoration strategies that maximize belowground restoration for carbon storage, while remaining tractable and cost-effective.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.

美国中部曾经拥有地球上最大的高草草原生态系统。通过农业和城市发展，这种生态系统的大部分--以及它为土壤健康、碳储存和生物多样性提供的好处--都消失了。今天，生态系统恢复是土地管理者和科学家共同努力使高草草原等生态系统恢复北美景观的一个重要途径，沿着它们提供的好处。典型的恢复策略侧重于播种本地植物。这种方法忽略了数百万的土壤微生物，这些微生物也被耕作和施肥破坏了。研究表明，许多过程在恢复的系统中无法发挥其潜力，因为土壤中微生物的数量和类型仍然永久改变。至关重要的是，这会影响恢复土壤中可以保留多少碳。重新制定恢复目标，使其专注于管理作为最佳碳汇的生态系统，是平衡温室气体排放和扭转环境变化影响的重要一步。实现这一目标的第一步需要更深入地了解基本管理选择如何影响土壤微生物碳的利用。该项目利用了现有的NSF资助的研究，其中包括两个指标（土地面积和植物物种数量），并将研究土壤微生物在这些不同处理中使用碳的效率。这个中期职业发展奖（MCA）将为处于职业关键时刻的科学家提供支持，通过学习测量微生物重要特征的新技术来推进他们的研究。本研究的主要目的是了解植被丰富度和恢复面积对恢复草地碳利用效率（CUE）、土壤细菌和真菌群落组成、功能和异质性的影响。这些目标将通过保护地实验（CLE）来实现，这是凯洛格生物站长期生态研究（LTER）站点正在进行的一个研究项目。CLE保留了12个面积在0.3 - 3.2公顷之间的地点，这些地点在2015年种植了低丰富度和高丰富度的植物种子。这是一个理想的实验，在其中测试应用的问题，恢复策略如何影响微生物多样性和异质性，使用空间显式采样设计。下一代DNA测序和分析，推定的功能途径预测和其他常见的土壤指标是PI的标准程序，但这些变量的价值将被提高时，结合基于速率的测量碳通量。该项目通过提供时间和资源与新罕布什尔州大学的专家同事一起学习基于18 O同位素的CUE测定，扩展了PI的研究专业知识。网络和合作的机会，预计将导致跨学科的项目，有现实世界的应用，并涉及非营利土地管理组织。最终，成果将包括新的恢复策略，最大限度地提高地下碳储存的恢复，同时保持易处理和成本效益。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。