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Methods highlight: Field climate manipulations: We examine effects of drought experimentally by inducing drought with rainout shelters. We have a large project examining rainfall exclusion in collaboration with 9 (!) other labs, at Kellogg Biological Station LTER (REX). We also leverage DroughtNet, a coordinated experiment of rainout shelters, in an NSF-funded project to examine microbial response to drought at 35 sites across the world. We study both managed and natural ecosystems.
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Methods highlight: individual-based models. We have used models to study both microbial assembly and microbial linkages to ecosystem function. The movie to the left shows a simulation of microbial cells on a soil micro-grid (1 square milimeter!). Different colors represent different microbial functional groups (e.g. cheaters). Individuals compete and are filtered on the grid over time. We used this model to study the role of microbial physiology - and community composition - in drying-rewetting pulses (Evans et al. 2015) with Tina Kaiser at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis.
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Methods highlight: stable isotopes. Stable isotopes are a powerful way to link microbial composition and function and to study and trace plant-microbe interactions. We use 15N to understand how nitrogen gas is fixed into microbial biomass and plant biomass. We also use 13CO2 labeling to quantify rates of root exudation and stable isotope probing (SIP) to characterize which microbes use which C and N compounds.
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