Current Projects (PIs and Students)
Five Rivers Wetland Restoration - Dayton, Ohio, US (Burgin, Loecke, Taylor, Jarecke, Silvey)
Converting aglands to wetlands: How do created wetlands affect global warming
potential and carbon storage?
potential and carbon storage?
Wetland restoration is often viewed as beneficial on a landscape scale because we have drained and removed many original wetlands. Flooding soil creates myriad biogeochemical changes, both beneficial and undesirable from a global warming perspective. For example, flooded soils release more greenhouse gases (e.g., methane, nitrous oxide), but potentially increase carbon storage. We want to understand the factors that control the balance between the ecosystem services and disservices associated with wetland restoration in agricultural landscapes. Funding is through the USDA portion of the joint program for Carbon Cycle Science.
Fremont Lakes - Fremont SRA. Nebraska, United States (Burgin, Thomas, Schoepfer, Webber, Trowbridge, Hammond, Schlafke)
How do fish renovation and alum affect lake water quality and internal phosphorus loading?
Our goal in Fremont Lakes is to aid state agencies in understanding how to best use their limited funds for restoration. The Fremont Lakes area contains 20 sandpit lakes, 16 of which were treated with alum in the Fall 2012 to reduce the effects of eutrophication. Simultaneously, four lakes received rotenone treatments to kill carp populations. Given this degree of replication at the full ecosystem scale, we expect our study to shed new light on how managers to best use their funds to improve water quality and habitat. Funding provided by the EPA 319 (Non-point source pollution program) with sponsorship by the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (NDEQ).
Drought-induced Nitrogen Pulse - Iowa, United States (Burgin, Loecke, Thomas, Adams, Reynolds)
RAPID: Using a drought-enhanced nitrate pulse to understand stream nitrogen retention and processing.
The goal of this project is to understand how the 2012 Midwestern drought affected nitrogen loading to streams and rivers. We are treating the drought as a natural experiment – one that is creating experimental conditions that we could not replicate. At the beginning of 2012, farmers did not know they would have a drought and thus used normal amounts of fertilizer. The drought intensified in July 2012, right as corn plants would’ve started really growing and depleting soil N. As a result of the drought, in the fall (2012) soils had enough N in them to support an entire crop of corn. We hypothesized that this N would flush out of the soils in the Spring of 2013 – which it did, in record amounts. Funding through the RAPID program of the National Science Foundation allowed us to put in sensors and water samplers to capture this N pulse, which was much larger than we could ever have created through an experiment. We are hoping it will give us new insight into how agricultural stream networks transport and transform nitrogen.
Timberlake Wetland - North Carolina, United States (Burgin and Schoepfer)
Coupled C, N and S cycling in coastal plain wetlands: How will climate change and
saltwater intrusion alter ecosystem dynamics?
saltwater intrusion alter ecosystem dynamics?
This is a collaboration with Dr. Emily Bernhardt at Duke University and Dr. Geoff Poole at Montana State. Our question at Timberlake is: How does periodic salt water inundation affecting the distribution of microbial processes in a coastal wetland? Valerie Schopefer completed her M.S. on the project in August 2013, please see her site for additional details as to our findings. We also continue to collaborate with Dr. Kristy Hopfensperger (Northern Kentucky University; ROA recipient) and former post-docs on the project Dr. Ashley Helton (currently at UConn) and Dr. Rob Payn (currently at Montana State). This work is funded by the National Science Foundation – Ecosystems.
ROBOT: Remotely Operated Biotic Offshore Technician (Burgin and Waring)
We are working with collaborators Dr. Carrick Detweiler (right) and Dr. Sebastian Elbaum in Computer Science & Engineering to develop an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) capable of sampling water. This project just started in Fall 2013, and will take place over three years with funds from the USDA. This project is not tied to a specific location, though it will use the Fremont Lakes system and our wealth of background information therein for testing and development.