DOE and UA Awards to characterize response in soil-omics to Tropical forest drought and rewet

Our team received two user facility awards to support genomic and metabolomic analysis of soil and root responses to drought and rewet in the WALD Campaign.

First, PI Malak Tfaily (UA) was awarded a Facilities Integrating Collaborations for User Science (FICUS) grant from the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) and the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) labs to study Rhizosphere effects on soil organic matter decomposition and microbial activity in a tropical rainforest under drought: unearthing aggregate- to ecosystem-scale contributions to carbon cycling through whole-ecosystem stable isotope labeling (#50971).

Second, PI Laura Meredith (UA) was awarded UA Research Innovation and Impact Core Facility award for sequencing at the University of Arizona Genetics Core to elucidate soil microbial VOC cycling by gene expression across drought-rewet dynamics.

Both awards leverage the immense effort and expertise of our WALD tean and the data sets generate during the campaign.