Contact: dkenney@mbl.edu; 508-685-3525
Salt marshes sequester carbon at rates more than an order of magnitude greater than their terrestrial counterparts. Core samples for this study where taken from this marsh in Rowley, Mass., part of the Plum Island Ecosystems NSF-LTER site. Credit: Aber, Aber, and Valentine 2009.
WOODS HOLE, Mass. – Deep in the waterlogged peat of salt marshes, carbon is stored at much greater rates than in land ecosystems, serving as an offset to climate change due to carbon dioxide (CO2) build-up in the atmosphere.
However, a new study indicates that a common pollutant of coastal waters, nitrate, stimulates the decomposition of organic matter in salt marsh sediments that normally would have remained stable over long periods of time. This increase in decomposition, which releases CO2, could alter the capacity of salt marshes to sequester carbon over the long term. The study, led by scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole, and Northeastern University, is published in Global Change Biology.
“Traditionally, we have viewed salt marshes as resilient to nitrogen pollution, because the microbes there remove much of the nitrogen as gas through a process called denitrification,” writes first author Ashley Bulseco, a postdoctoral scientist at the MBL.
“But this research suggests that when nitrate is abundant, a change occurs in the microbial community in salt marsh sediments that increases the microbes’ capacity to degrade organic matter. This potentially reduces the ability of the marsh to store carbon,” Bulseco writes.
Ashley Bulseco, pictured, and co-authors used a controlled flow-through reactor experiment to determine how nitrate affected organic matter decomposition and microbial community structure in salt marsh sediments. Credit: MBL Ecosystems Center
As global temperatures continue to rise, a number of carbon capture strategies have been proposed, including sequestering CO2 in “blue carbon” habitats such as salt marshes, mangroves and seagrass meadows. However, coastal nitrogen pollution is also still rising in many areas due to agricultural and urban runoff, and sewage.
“Given the extent of nitrogen loading along our coastlines, it is imperative that we better understand the resilience of salt marsh systems to nitrate, especially if we hope to rely on salt marshes and other blue carbon systems for long-term carbon storage,” the authors write.
The next phase of this research, already in progress, is to analyze the microbial community responsible for degrading carbon in a salt marsh ecosystems, especially when exposed to high concentrations of nitrate.
Among Bulseco’s co-authors are Jennifer Bowen, professor of marine and environmental sciences at Northeastern University, and Anne Giblin, director of the Ecosystems Center at the MBL, who were her PhD advisors.
Citation:
Ashley N. Bulseco et al (2019) Nitrate addition stimulates microbial decomposition of organic matter in salt marsh sediments. Global Change Biology, DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14726
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The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is dedicated to scientific discovery – exploring fundamental biology, understanding marine biodiversity and the environment, and informing the human condition through research and education. Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution and an affiliate of the University of Chicago.
WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- When sparks fly to innovate new technologies for imaging life at the microscopic scale, often diverse researchers are nudging each other with a kind of collegial one-upmanship.
“Look at the resolution we obtain with this microscope I’ve designed,” the physicist says. “Great,” the biologist replies, “but my research organism moves fast. Can you boost the system’s speed?” “You’ll have terabytes of raw data coming off that microscope system,” says the computational scientist. “We’ll build in algorithms to manage the data and produce the most meaningful images.” Around they go, propelling a cycle of challenge and innovation that allows them to see more clearly into new dimensions of the microscopic world.
Interdisciplinary interactions are essential for driving the innovation pipeline in biological imaging, yet collegial workspaces where they can spring up and mature are lacking in the United States. Last fall, the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) convened a National Science Foundation workshop to identify the bottlenecks that stymie innovation in microscopy and imaging, and recommend approaches for transforming how imaging technologies are developed and deployed. The conclusions of the 79 workshop participants are summarized in a Commentary in the August issue of Nature Methods.
“We propose a network of national imaging centers that provide collaborative, interdisciplinary spaces needed for the development, application, and teaching of advanced biological imaging techniques,” write the authors and workshop leaders, MBL Fellows Daniel A. Colón-Ramos of Yale University School of Medicine, Patrick La Riviere of the University of Chicago, Hari Shroff of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, and MBL Senior Scientist Rudolf Oldenbourg.
“Creating spaces for co-locating microscopists, computational scientists and biologists, in our experience, is a key and missing ingredient in new and necessary ecosystems of innovation. Sometimes the seeds of innovation have to be planted in the same pot for them to flower and be fruitful,” Colón-Ramos says.
For the proposed centers to optimally succeed, they need expert staff scientists who engage in and catalyze collaborations among the major players in the imaging ecosystem, the group concluded. The centers will provide space and expertise not only for teaching existing, high-end imaging techniques, but also for designing and testing new technologies with real-world biological applications and disseminating them promptly to staff and visiting scientists, faculty and students. All can participate in an iterative innovation process, driving discovery while becoming interdisciplinary thinkers and project developers themselves.
As a next step in transforming the vision of national imaging centers into a reality, a follow-up meeting with a variety of funding stakeholders will be scheduled in the spring of 2020. Look for an announcement at https://www.mbl.edu/nsf-workshop/. Ideas and helpful comments for the meeting may be sent to ImagingNetworks@MBL.edu.
An Imaging Initiative is in progress at the MBL, with many elements of the proposed national imaging centers already in place and others under development.
Citation: Daniel A. Colón-Ramos, Patrick La Riviere, Hari Shroff and Rudolf Oldenbourg (2019). Transforming the development and dissemination of cutting-edge microscopy and computation. Nature Methods, DOI: 10.1038/s41592-019-0475-y
Home page photo caption: Cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) skin; neurons in red. Credit: Trevor Wardill
Captions - first column, top to bottom
Bacteria in a model human gut microbiome established in a germ-free mouse. Credit: Jessica Mark Welch and Yuko Hasegawa
MBL Hibbitt Fellow Duygu Ozpolat learns how to use the diSPIM imaging system at an MBL workshop. Credit: Diana Kenney
Microtubule structures in Stentor. Credit: Victoria Yan, MBL Physiology course
LC-PolScope image of cell wall sacculi purified from Bacillus subtilis with different levels of induction of mreBCD, the genes that build rod shape. Color indicates molecular orientation, brightness the degree of alignment. Credit: Dion, MF. et al (2019) Nature Microbiology.
Captions - second column, top to bottom
Blackboard notes comparing imaging systems in a MBL Whitman Center lab.
Mouse inner ear spiral ganglia culture. Credit: Mirko Scheibinger, MBL Biology of Inner Ear course
Color-coded actin filament orientation is overlaid on an image of fluorescence intensity. The orientation corresponds to the color wheel at bottom left. Credit: Shalin Mehta and Tomomi Tani
Parhyale hawaiensis, a model system for studying the evolution and development of body plans. Credit: Nipam Patel, MBL Embryology course
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The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is dedicated to scientific discovery – exploring fundamental biology, understanding marine biodiversity and the environment, and informing the human condition through research and education. Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution and an affiliate of the University of Chicago.
The Marine Biological Laboratory is pleased to announce the kickoff of the 2019 MBL Photo Contest! The contest will recognize the finest images of life science specimens and macro photos of MBL research and/or research locations captured while participating in one of our research or educational programs.
The contest is open to anyone with an MBL ID who is 18 years or older. Images submitted must be unpublished. Images that have earned any award, honorable mention, recognition or prize in any other competition are NOT eligible.
Winning images may be considered for inclusion in the MBL 2020 calendar, publications, website and promotional materials.
For more information and to enter, visit mbl.edu/photo-contest.
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The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is dedicated to scientific discovery – exploring fundamental biology, understanding biodiversity and the environment, and informing the human condition through research and education. Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution and an affiliate of the University of Chicago.