NSF Award
2413160
Soil degradation affects 33% of Earth’s land surface and is exacerbated by climate change. Climate-driven soil degradation is an especially urgent problem in drylands, which have unique soil microbial communities that include surface biological soil crusts that reduce erosion. Drylands generate feedback to climate change because they account for ~⅓ of global soil organic carbon and make the largest contributions to interannual carbon fluxes of any terrestrial biome. Despite the importance of microbes to dryland soil health, little is known about how individual dryland soil microbes respond to climate change. The project aims to discover microbial solutions that promote soil health in hotter, drier climates. Research activities characterize the climate resistance of common dryland microbe species exposed to heat and drought, discover how to assemble communities of these species that maximally resist heat and drought, and seek use-inspired solutions that inoculate climate-ready microbes into soils of the Chihuahuan Desert, New Mexico, USA. Ecologists and microbiologists work collaboratively on activities that leverage prior NSF-funded infrastructure and biological collections. Synergistic broader impacts include an innovative program for high school teachers to bring contemporary research into underserved K-12 classrooms, a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience for a gateway majors course, summer REU students, a new community science photography project to raise public awareness of the ecological services of biocrusts, annual workshops for park personnel, volunteers, land managers, retirees, school teachers, and students with Joshua Tree National Park Association, and a schoolyard Data Jam with students from Nevada, Florida, New Mexico, and Puerto Rico.<br/><br/>Climate change can accelerate soil degradation through changes to soil microbes. Vegetation-poor drylands are soil microbe-driven ecosystems with unique microbiomes that influence soil health. Ecologists and microbiologists work collaboratively on soil health solutions that leverage prior NSF-funded infrastructure and biological collections, including collaboration with Sevilleta LTER. The integration of knowledge in a hierarchical framework that spans the individual organism to the ecosystem has high potential to improve predictions (theory) and solutions (use-inspired applications) for improved soil health. At the individual-population level, lab experiments characterize heat and desiccation resistance and traits for 30 species of dryland Cyanobacteria and Fungi and molecular mechanisms of resistance. At the population-community level, greenhouse experiments test how heat and drought alter microbe interactions, and, in turn, how microbial composition affects resistance to heat and drought. At the community-ecosystem level, field research applies climate-ready microbial assemblages to reverse long-term soil degradation. This project builds the first comprehensive database on dryland microbe physiological resistance to heat and drought. Trait-based work seeks generalizable rules on microbial climate resistance, tests whether conservative traits confer greater stress-resistance than acquisitive traits, and evaluates the novel hypothesis that cross-domain assemblages composed of bacteria and fungi maximize the resistance of soil health to heat and drought. Altogether, research activities have high potential to generate novel predictions and solutions that maximize the resistance of drylands to soil degradation under climate change. Broader impacts span K12 classrooms to graduate training and build new collaboration with regional managers of soil health. <br/><br/>This project is jointly funded by Integrative Ecological Physiology (IOS/IEP) and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
