Minirhizotron root-image processing system

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My research examines how global environmental change is transforming the diversity and functioning of grassland plant communities. A key limiting factor for understanding grassland function is that >90% of all biological activity occurs belowground. Until recently, technological limitations constrained our understanding of this activity. Measurements of resource pool sizes (nitrogen, carbon) and rooting volume and depth were mostly conducted using soil coring, which was time consuming and destructive so that re-sampling was impossible. This has changed with the development of soil minirhizotrons (basically a root camera). Minirhizotron technology provides a continuous and non-destructive means for measuring belowground plant dynamics to depths > 1 m, and is critical for quantifying the responses of root production, standing root crop, and root mortality to environmental change. The system works by permanently burying transparent plastic tubes beneath active plant communities. A digital root camera is periodically lowered into the tube, with pictures taken through the tube walls to monitor the growth, total biomass, and mortality of roots. When this information is combined with measures of the carbon and nitrogen content of soil and root tissue using mass spectrometry, we can accurately describe how resource pool sizes and flow rates are altered by various aspects of global change (e.g., plant invasion, eutrophication, climate change). As a new faculty member at the University of Guelph, the establishment of my research program fully depends on the acquisition of the minirhizotron technology as soon as possible. Therefore, I am requesting partial funding from NSERC to purchase this equipment.