CAREER: Microbial Allocation of Assimilated Carbon: Interactions between Temperature, Substrate Quality, and Microbial Physiology Determine Efficiency of Arctic Soil Carbon Cycling

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This CAREER proposal aims to understand the fate, in a warming climate, of the large stocks of carbon that are currently sequestered in Arctic soils. Specifically, the principal investigator (PI) will study the complex response of soil microorganisms to increasing temperature and changing substrate availability. The work will address the following objectives: (1) Determine how the quality of dissolved organic matter produced by enzymatic degradation changes with temperature, (2) Determine how microbial allocation of carbon to new growth, respiration, and enzyme production changes with temperature and substrate chemistry, and (3) Evaluate whether the temperature effect on microbial allocation of labile carbon affects the decomposition of old soil organic matter. The approach will involve both field-based and laboratory experiments. An improved understanding of how climate warming will affect microbially-driven soil carbon cycling in the Arctic is critical to reduce uncertainty in our predictions of global climate-carbon feedbacks. The awardee will integrate research, teaching, and outreach through a set of activities designed to teach undergraduates critical research skills and provide real research experiences, in addition to working with graduate students to learn how to be effective mentors. He will (1) Serve as a faculty coordinator for a formal undergraduate training program called Skills for Undergraduate Participation in Ecological Research (SUPER), which aims to develop basic research skills prior to student participation in hands-on research and to recruit students from underrepresented groups; (2) Provide opportunities for up to 26 undergraduates to directly participate in this proposed research after completing the SUPER program; (3) Teach a three-week module in a senior capstone course focused on Arctic soil ecology. Students would collect soils in a local alpine environment and analyze them in the laboratory. Students that had previously participated in this Arctic research would teach the other students about how the alpine environment compares to the Arctic.