Unravelling the microbial mechanisms of soil nitrous oxide emissions

土壤生态系统被认为是全球一氧化二氮排放的最主要来源。然而，由于缺乏对其产生的微生物机制的了解，一氧化二氮的缓解受到严重阻碍。该项目旨在整合一系列先进的方法，以确定关键的氮循环基因作为田间研究中一氧化二氮的最佳预测因子，以解开温室和微宇宙研究中微生物途径对一氧化二氮的相对贡献，并在澳大利亚和中国的各种土地利用类型中验证这些发现。这将提供一个关键框架，将微生物数据纳入一氧化二氮预测模型，以更好地减缓温室气体排放。

Soil ecosystems are believed to be the most dominant sources of global nitrous oxide emissions. However, mitigations of nitrous oxide are strongly hindered by lack of knowledge on microbial mechanisms underpinning its production. This project aims to integrate a range of advanced approaches to identify the key nitrogen cycling genes as best predictors of nitrous oxide in field studies, to disentangle relative contribution of microbial pathways to nitrous oxide in glasshouse and microcosm studies, and to validate these findings across various land-use types in Australia and China. This will provide a critical framework incorporating microbial data into the nitrous oxide prediction models for better mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions.