The Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and biosphere are huge reservoirs of carbon, and all play a critical role in global carbon cycling. Soil is one of the largest carbon pools on the planet, storing more carbon than the atmosphere and biosphere combined, yet scientists aren’t sure what regulates carbon persistence—the amount of carbon that remains in the soil.
Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)… Read more
Dec. 7, 2018
Predicting and managing the global carbon cycle requires understanding the ecosystem processes that control carbon uptake and storage.
Although scientists generally think of carbon cycling in terms of the uptake and exchange between ecosystem plant and soil pools and the atmosphere, a new study of animals and the zoogeochemistry of the carbon cycle published in the journal Science shows animals also… Read more
Findings of a new study organized by the Permafrost Carbon Network (PCN) suggest that putting more effective greenhouse gas controls in place for the rest of this century could help mitigate the effects of climate change on the release of carbon from thawing soils of the northern permafrost region.
The paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, represents a collaboration between ecosystem scientists Ted Schuur and Christina… Read more
Artist’s depiction of the Serengeti food web with normal AM (left) and a hypothetical food web without nutrient inputs from these important symbioses (right). Illustration by Victor Leshyk. The complex Serengeti ecosystem, which spans 12,000 square miles extending from northern Tanzania into southwestern Kenya, is home to millions of animals, including 70 species of large mammals. It is a hotspot for mammal diversity—including herbivores such… Read more
Ecological research focuses on understanding how population-level dynamics—such as the growth rate of a particular population of microbes—contribute to ecosystem-level processes. Ecosystem scientists researching climate change often study the role of microbes in the carbon cycle, for example, so knowing how quickly they grow is a fundamental metric to reaching that understanding.
Until now, however, scientists have not had the ability to measure growth rates of individual microbial populations… Read more
The boreal forest, or taiga, is the largest terrestrial biome on Earth, extending across North America, Europe and Asia north of the 50th parallel. Representing nearly one-third of the world’s forest cover, the boreal forest plays a significant role in the planet’s biodiversity. Its coniferous spruce, pine and larch trees flourish in the long, severe winters and short summers of the subarctic climate. The forest… Read more