Research Summary from the 2013 TES/SBR Joint Investigators Meeting

The Subsurface Biogeochemical Research and Terrestrial Ecosystem Science programs within the Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) held their first annual joint investigators meeting May 14-15, 2013, in Potomac, Maryland, just north of Washington, D.C.

Abstracts PDF

Individual Abstract PDFs of ongoing research projects in or associated with the SBR and TES programs in 2013.

Agenda (PDF)

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

8:00–9:35 am		Overview of Programs and Strategic Directions	Mike Kuperberg
	8:00-8:05 am	Welcome and Introductory Comments	M. Kuperberg
	8:05-8:20 am	BER Programs	S. Weatherwax
	8:20-8:35 am	CESD Programs & Strategic Plan.	G. Geernaert
	8:35-8:55 am	TES Program Goals, Objectives, Program Structure and Highlights	D. Stover
	8:55-9:15 am	SBR Program Goals, Objectives, Program Structure and Highlights	P. Bayer
	9:15-9:35 am	GSP Program Overview	J. Graber
9:35-10:00 am		Break
10:00-12:00 pm		Plenary Session I – Research and Simulation across Scales	David Lesmes
	10:00-10:30 am	NGEE-Arctic: Migrating knowledge across scales to improve climate prediction	P. Thornton
	10:30-11:00am	Modeling the planets microbiome and its feedback on climate	J. Gilbert
	11:00-11:30am	Advanced characterization and analyses of complex microbial communities	J. Banfield
	11:30-12:00 pm	The biomolecular and genetic basis of mercury methylation	J. Parks
12:00-2:00 pm		Lunch
2:00-5:00 pm		Poster Session I
	2:00-3:30 pm	Poster Subsession A
	3:30-5:00 pm	Poster Subsession B
5:30-7:00 pm		Dinner
7:00-8:30 pm		Concurrent Sessions - I
	Concurrent Session 1: Belowground Ecology		Dan Stover
	7:00-7:20 pm	Soil warming and the vulnerability of old soil organic carbon	M. Torn
	7:20-7:40 pm	Stem respiration and its connection with soil respiration	J. Tang
	7:40-8:00 pm	Partitioning in Trees and Shrubs (PiTS): A field research facility for testing dynamic carbon partitioning representations within global models	C. Iversen
	8:00-8:20 pm	Temperature research of soil microbial efficiency and its feedbacks to climate	J. Melillo
	Concurrent Session 2: Terrestrial-Aquatic Interfaces		Mike Kuperberg
	7:00-7:20pm	A connection to deep groundwater alters ecosystem carbon fluxes and budgets: example from a Costa Rican rainforest	D. Genereux
	7:20-7:40pm	Convergence of the effect of root hydraulic functioning and root hydraulic redistribution on ecosystem carbon balance and drought-induced vegetation mortality across divergent forest ecosystems	A. Noormets
	7:40-8:00pm	Understanding the role of landscape structure in coupled carbon and water dynamics	H. Barnard
	8:00-8:20pm	Toward a predictive understanding of microbial carbon turnover in a northern peatland	J. Kostka
	Concurrent Session 3: Reactive Transport in Subsurface Systems		Paul Bayer
	7:00-7:20pm	Geoelectrical measurement of multi-scale mass transfer parameters	F. Day-Lewis
	7:20-7:40pm	Modeling uranium desorption and transport from decimeter to plume scales	G. Curtis
	7:40-8:00pm	Uranium transport across ground water surface water interfaces: Effect of wetland plans on the sediment biogeochemistry	P. Jaffe
	8:00-8:20pm	Biogeochemical cycling of manganese and its effect on uranium mobility	B. Tebo
	Concurrent Session 4: Transport Processes of Inorganics		Roland Hirsch
	7:00-7:20pm	Products of uranium reduction: Are we modeling the correct species?	K. Kemner
	7:20-7:40pm	Inorganic geochemical controls on Neptunium transport: co-precipitation in minerals	P. Burns
	7:40-8:00pm	Collaborative Research: The importance of organo-iodine and iodate in iodine-127,129 speciation, mobility, and microbial activity in groundwater at DOE sites.	P. Santschi
	8:00-8:20pm	The biogeochemical controls on plutonium transport	A. Kersting
8:30pm		Adjourn

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

8:00-9:00 am		Plenary Session II- Evolution and Long-Term Payoffs of Field Projects	Mike Kuperberg
	8:00-8:30 am	Long-term experiments and observations: Fertile ground for model benchmarking and improvement in the context of environmental change	P. Hanson
	8:30-9:00 am	Linking fluvial processes and elemental cycling in the Old Rifle, CO aquifer	K. Williams
9:00-12:00 pm		Poster Session II
	9:00-10:30 am	Poster Subsession C
	10:30-12:00 pm	Poster Subsession D
12:00-1:30 pm		Lunch
1:30-3:00 pm		Plenary Session III – University Highlight Talks	Paul Bayer
	1:30-1:50 pm	Resilience of forest carbon storage to low-intensity disturbance: Insights from a large-scale experiment within a long-term AmeriFlux site in the upper Great Lakes	C. Gough
	1:50-2:10 pm	Permafrost carbon and climate feedbacks in a warmer world	T. Schuur
	2:10-2:30 pm	Deciphering molecular-scale processes to describe field-scale phenomena in carbon and metal cycling	S. Fendorf
	2:30-2:50 pm	Genome-scale modeling of carbon and metal cycling in the subsurface	D. Lovley
3:00-4:30pm		Concurrent Sessions – II
	Concurrent Session 5 Disturbances in Terrestrial Ecosystems		Dan Stover
	3:00-3:20 pm	Responses of pinon and juniper to rainfall manipulation: Mechanisms of drought-induced mortality and the implications of long-term acclimation	W. Pockman
	3:20-3:40 pm	The impact of Mountain Pine beetle disturbance on carbon cycling in high elevation Western forests	D. Moore
	3:40-4:00 pm	Responses of subalpine tree recruitment to warming within and above current altitudinal ranges	L. Kueppers
	4:00-4:20 pm	It’s all connected: Linking above- and belowground dryland responses to climate change	S. Reed
	Concurrent Session 6: Bio- and Geo-chemical Controls on Contaminant Transport		Paul Bayer
	3:00-3:20 pm	Kinetics of nitrate-dependent uranium and iron oxidation	P. O’Day
	3:20-3:40 pm	Metaproteomics of metal and radionuclide bioreduction	S. Pfiffner
	3:40-4:00 pm	Isotopic characterization of mercury biogeochemistry	J. Blum
	4:00-4:20 pm	Reactivity and bioavailability of nanoscale mercury sulfides	H. Hsu-Kim
	Concurrent Session 7: Investigating Biogeochemical Processes Using Advanced Technologies		Roland Hirsch
	3:00-3:20 pm	COS Flux Measurements: New instrumentation and eddy flux observations for a carbon cycle tracer at one-millionth the concentration of CO₂	K. Maseyk
	3:20-3:40 pm	Terrestrial carbon cycling: Insights gained from radiocarbon measurements	K. McFarlane
	3:40-4:00 pm	Coupling synchrotron and biogeochemical techniques to understand biogeochemical critical element cycling at molecular to pore scales	J. Bargar
	4:00-4:20 pm	Investigating biogeochemical and microbial community dynamics in a groundwater-river water interaction zone promoted by seasonal hydrologic fluctuations	J. Zachara
	Concurrent Session 8: Multi-scale Modeling of Terrestrial Environments		David Lesmes
	3:00-3:20 pm	Hybrid multiscale modeling of coupled hydrologic and biogeochemical terrestrial processes	T. Scheibe
	3:20-3:40 pm	Scaling of coupled hydrology and biogeochemistry from genomes to landscapes	B. Riley
	3:40-4:00 pm	Towards a complete description of the hydrologic cycle: High resolution, continental-scale simulations with a parallel, integrated model	R. Maxwell
	4:00-4:20 pm	Towards a scalable approach to modeling hydrological and biogeochemical processes	R. Leung
4:30-5:30 pm		Plenary Session IV – Workshops and Other Programmatic Activities	Dan Stover
	4:30-4:45 pm	EMSL Workshop: Belowground carbon cycling	N. Hess
	4:45-5:00 pm	Integrated Water Cycle Workshop	R. Leung
	5:00-5:15 pm	GOAmazon update	W. Ferrell
	5:15-5:30 pm	NGEE Tropics Workshop	R. Norby
5:30-5:45 pm		Closeout/Announcements
5:45-7:00 pm		Dinner
7:00 pm		Adjourn
7:00-8:30 pm		Optional Working Group and Team Meetings
		Working Group
		Mercury	L. Liang & N. Yee
		Radionuclides	A. Kersting & J. Zachara
		SS Multi-scale Modeling and Workflows	D. Lesmes, D. Ricciuto & T.Scheibe
		Team Meetings
		NGEE-Arctic	S. Wullschleger
		SPRUCE	P. Hanson
		AmeriFlux	M. Torn