From the tops of tree canopies to the bottom of groundwater reservoirs, a vast amount of living organisms interact with nonliving components such as rock, water, and soil to shape this area of Earth known as the “critical zone.” Over half of Earth’s microbes are located in the subsurface critical zone, which ranges from…
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The rhizosphere–the region of soil surrounding plant roots in which soil and microbes closely interact–plays an important role in soil carbon cycling. The rhizosphere is only about 1-2% of Earth’s soil volume but can store up to 30-40% of Earth’s total soil organic matter. Plants secrete organic compounds such as amino acids or enzymes known…
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After flipping on the TV to a science channel segment about environmental microbes, postdoc researcher Brandon Enalls was instantly amazed by microbiology. After working with a research group that studied microbes in extreme salinity, like the Dead Sea, Enalls knew he wanted to study microbes “in strange places, doing strange things,” inspiring him to get…
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On May 31, a delegation of students from Wageningen University & Research Center (WUR) Microbiology and Systems Biology Groups in the Netherlands came to visit EESA’s Ecology department. WUR is a highly esteemed world-class Dutch university that trains specialists in a variety of life sciences disciplines. WUR’s research and teaching activities range from sustainable agriculture…
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Microbiologists study how tiny soil-dwelling microbial organisms behave individually and in community in order to evaluate how climate change is affecting the extent carbon is being released from soils into the atmosphere as planet-warming carbon dioxide. A new paper by EESA scientists published in the journal Nature Communications describes how microbes responded to experimental soil…
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Xiaoqin Wu, Sara Gushgari-Doyle, and Mon Oo Yee from Romy Chakraborty’s group in EESA’s Ecology Department and the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT have published a paper in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology describing a study they hope will advance cultivation and isolation strategies for recovering diverse, uncultivable, and novel microorganisms from Earth’s…
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The 2% of microbes on Earth that we can grow in the lab have led to groundbreaking discoveries, such as the vaccine for malaria, but can you imagine what the other 98% could give us? Sara Gushgari-Doyle’s approach to cultivating difficult-to-culture microorganisms tied her for second place in the Sept. 17 finals of Berkeley Lab’s…
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Isotope geochemists at Berkeley Lab are the first to establish the degree of Potassium (K) isotopic fractionation by plants. Isotopes are atoms of the same element that have a different number of neutrons. Scientists have just in the past decade begun studying for key nutrient elements (other than C,…
Read MoreRomy Chakraborty, Ecology Department Head Sixteen women at various stages of their careers were honored for making extraordinary contributions to STEM and Operations here at Berkeley Lab at the third Women @ The Lab event on Monday, July 9. Hundreds of friends and colleagues cheered as each woman approached the stage in the B50…
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Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division scientist Kolby Jardine is one of six researchers selected by the Department of Energy to receive significant funding for research through its Early Career Research Program this year. The program, now in its ninth year, is designed to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during the…
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