MT-EPSCoR Focus 1

Examining Feedbacks Between Microbial Metabolism and Ecosystem Processes

This project addresses feedbacks between microbial matabolism and ecosystem processes in a forest soils, prairie potholes, river systems, and lakes.

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The genomics of a beetle-fungal symbiosis with massive implications for forest disturbance ecology and climate

MT-EPSCoR Focus 1

This project aims to understand the obligate relationship between bark and ambrosia beetles and their symbiotic fungi.

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Understanding the Effects of Biotic and Abiotic Factors on Honey Bee Health

MT-EPSCoR Focus 1

This project uses cutting edge techniques to investigate host-pathogen interactions in honey bees. Honey bees are essential pollinators of numerous crops, thus recent increased annual losses of honey bee colonies is a risk to agricultural production

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National Science Foundation

NSF EPSCoR ((Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) Track 1 awards are intended to improve the research competitiveness of jurisdictions by improving their academic research infrastructure in areas of science and engineering supported by the National Science Foundation and critical to the particular jurisdiction’s science and technology initiative or plan. This project, including the Montana Institute on Ecosystems, is a response to the Montana University System Science and Technology Plan, targeting Environmental and Ecosystem Science, one of five major research areas identified as a priority for Montana.

Montana's current NSF EPSCoR Track 1 project is foundational for the Montana Institute on Ecosystems (IoE). The IoE was established as an innovative component Montana EPSCoR Track 1 project. A first-of-its-kind experiment for Montana to build a state-wide institute on ecosystem sciences, the IOE leads and coordinateds all MT EPSCoR Track 1 projects and components through a new statewide, multi-institutional structure.

MT-ESPCoR Research Model

Project Overview: MtEPSCoR program is committed to addressing one of the critical scientific and social issues facing the nation: the effects of climate change in sustaining healthy ecosystems and economic growth. By bridging the worlds of microbiology, ecology, and climatology, the MtEPSCoR program seeks to understand the dynamics and linkages of ecosystem processes that govern how an ecosystem responds to climate change. Through this interdisciplinary and ecosystem-centric approach, the program will provide an innovative model that is both regionally relevant and nationally significant, while capitalizing on the unique resources and scientific strengths found in Montana.

SCIENCE OBJECTIVE: Ecosystem-climate linkages: Biomes to microbes -- What are the physical and biotic processes that govern ecosystem structure and function, and how will these ecosystem interactions be influenced by climate change?

Focus 1: Examining feedbacks between microbial metabolism and ecosystem processes

Measure microbial contributions in soil and water to C/ N cycling and transport
Determine temporal variability in microbial contributions to soil and water C/N cycling and transport over three to five years
Measure microbial response under natural disturbance (e.g. drought, fire, insect infestation, flood and imposed disturbance through experimental manipulations).
Examine the flux and transformation of C/N through the system in three dimensions and in relation to microbial processing of organic C/N.

Focus 2: Linking changes in landscape pattern to ecosystem process

Understand the importance of ecological legacies on ecosystem processes, as measured by changes in ecosystem structure and composition.
Create scenarios of past, present, and future landscape-level climate change by improving current down-scaled GCM and regional climate model output.
Link field and modeling approaches to fill gaps in atmospheric-terrestrial-aquatic interfaces and spatial representations of C, N, and water cycling within montane watersheds.
Refine and develop process models for comparison of aquatic-terrestrial linkages and vegetation climate interactions.

Focus 3: Understanding impacts of climate-change through ecosystemmodeling and vulnerability

Integrate the novel microbial modeling algorithms into the ecosystem models developed above to simulate the interactive effects of climate, vegetation, land-use and disturbance on ecosystem structure and function, from microbial to landscape scale.
Assess ecosystem vulnerability focusing on the Great Northern Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GNLCC), which encompasses a wide range of federal and state-managed lands in Montana and the interior Northwest, including many underserved communities.

Integration: Projects that support and link the three Focus Areas.

This project component is a year 2 modification from the original science objectives.

Social-Ecological Systems Initiative: Integration of social-ecological systems (aka coupled natural and human systems) inquiry in the total portfolio of research capacity in the IoE to better understand Montana's ecosystems undergoing rapid change.