BSSD 2019 Performance Metric – End-of-year summary report
The LANL Science Focus Area program in Terrestrial Microbial Carbon Cycling aims to inform climate modeling and enable carbon management in terrestrial ecosystems. To achieve these aims, the program develops and uses community genomics approaches to discover widespread biological processes that control carbon storage and release in temperate biome soils. The first nine years of the program focused on developing and applying community genomics approaches to examine the composition, spatiotemporal variability, and response of soil microbial communities in two biomes to environmental changes that alter carbon cycling (e.g., elevated atmospheric CO2, nitrogen fertilization, and drought). Owing to persistent inability to distinguish cosmetic from functionally consequential responses, the SFA recently shifted research strategy. The new research strategy focuses on soil microbial communities that drive differences in carbon cycling within the same environment. With this approach, there is an inherent cause-effect relationship between microbial community composition and ecosystem function. This approach is revealing core micro-organisms and interactions at different scales (molecular to ecosystem-level) that drive contrasting patterns of carbon cycling. Elaborating processes that shape the composition and function of soil microbial communities driving terrestrial carbon cycling will accelerate progress toward more accurate climate models and strategies for terrestrial carbon sequestration.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- 89233218CNA000001
- OSTI ID:
- 1569720
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-19-30124
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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