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.
Individual Abstract PDFs of ongoing research projects in or associated with the SBR and TES programs in 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 | ||
| 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 | ||
Subsurface Biogeochemical-Related BER Research Highlights
Submit Research Highlight
Visit our sister program,