Warming global temperatures are changing life on every continent on Earth, including Antarctica, where more microbes are moving in to territory previously covered by ice. How these microbes respond to warming offers us clues about what future Antarctica will look like and who will thrive there. Microbial ecologist and PhD Read more…
Bruce Hungate, Ecoss Director, Regents’ Professor, and McAllister Chair in Community, Culture, and Environment is presenting in Science on Tap on ‘Climate Change and Culture on the Colorado Plateau‘. How will climate change affect our region? How can we respond? Explore the science of climate change, its relationship to society Read more…
“NAU Regents’ Professor Bruce Hungate, director of the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society (Ecoss), recently joined a new initiative lead by LLNL to study how the soil microbiome controls the mechanisms that regulate the stabilization of the organic matter in soil. “How do different kinds of microorganisms in the soil grow? How Read more…
Tonight at 6:30 PM, please join us at The Green Room for “Accurate Passion: Metaphor and Meaning in Scientific Art” with Victor Leshyk and Dr. Bruce Hungate. In this image-heavy presentation which shares a multiyear portfolio of his artwork, Scientific Illustrator Victor Leshyk discusses the challenges and goals of modern science communication. Read more…
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are widespread and are increasingly associated with human infections. Inappropriate antibiotic use – both in people and in animals raised for food – drives the evolution of multi-drug-resistant pathogens and threatens a post-antibiotic era – one in which minor infections can kill. The majority of antibiotics are actually sold for use in food Read more…
Biochar, a fine-grained carbon residue of charred plant material, has recently been promoted as a universal amendment to soil to improve moisture and nutrient content with the expectation of higher agricultural yields, fostering the rise of a large global biochar industry. In the original context of “terra preta,” the rich Read more…
Ecoss research demonstrated that grasslands with more diverse plant species pull down and store more carbon per acre: in this illustration, the same plot of soil from a diverse vs. depauperate grassland shows more belowground investment in deeper roots and denser storage of carbon in a diverse array of plants. Read more…
In a groundbreaking study, Ecoss research produced a monetary value for biodiversity by demonstrating that having more diverse plant species enables a grassland to draw down and store more carbon. This finding allows calculations of how much carbon storage is lost or gained per species added or lost from a Read more…
Measuring the growth rates of individual bacteria taxa within a mixed sample gives a powerful view of the moving parts of a living ecosystem, especially when that sample is soil, where so many ecological processes occur. Ecoss research pioneered “qSIP” — a new method for gathering many simultaneous bacterial growth Read more…
Native soil carbon (C) can be lost in response to fresh C inputs, via the “priming effect,” a phenomenon observed for decades yet still not understood. Using dual-stable isotope probing, Ecoss research showed that priming involves changes in the diversity and composition of two functional bacterial groups: a single-substrate pulse Read more…