2320667

BII: EMBER: EMBEDDING MOLECULAR BIOLOGY IN ECOSYSTEM RESEARCH IN AN ERA OF INCREASING WILDFIRE AND DROUGHT -Wildfire is a fundamental process in many forest ecosystems, but intensifying wildfire regimes are threatening the carbon storage capacity and ecosystem services they provide. While many tree and microbial species have evolved traits that make them resilient to and often benefit from fire, many forests are failing to recover, and we don?t know why.

Within biology, incremental advances within siloed disciplines have provided very few science-informed solutions to mitigate climate change, the primary driver behind extreme wildfire and drought events. EMBER posits this problem exists because molecular and cellular processes have never been embedded in ecosystem research. EMBER?s vision is to identify key traits and variables that govern how biological communities respond to and interact with stress.

By uniting a team of diverse scientists with expertise spanning multiple biological disciplines, EMBER aims to transform our understanding of fundamental controls on forest processes. To extend its vision and reach, EMBER will partner with the Coeur d?Alene Tribe and the Bonneville Environmental Foundation to establish an Indigenous Innovation Lab for tribal and rural students, develop a unique Teacher Fellows training program, and engage with citizens from across the political spectrum (including climate change skeptics). Expected outcomes of these efforts include determining thresholds for forest recovery, predicting how stress impacts the forest carbon sink, training the next generation of scientists to transcend disciplines for use-inspired solutions to climate change, and developing an effective science-communication framework to inform forest policy.

By embedding molecular biology in ecosystem research, the EMBER Institute will identify key traits and variables that govern how biological communities respond to and interact with compounding environmental stress. EMBER focuses on two overarching aims: (1) identify direct physiological and evolutionary acclimation strategies of individual model microorganisms and conifer tree species to simulated fire and drought and (2) determine how these stress-response strategies influence ecological interactions among organisms (microbe-microbe and microbe-tree) that scale-up to impact ecosystem resilience and function. Beginning with controlled laboratory experiments and tractable model organisms, EMBER will determine how stress induces transcriptional and functional responses that impact microbial community assembly and conifer seedling physiology.

Fire and drought conditions will be manipulated at an experimental field site to test how biological responses scale up to impact the forest carbon balance. Finally, ecosystem modeling will be used to test whether transcriptional and compositional signatures modulate key forest processes (e.g., photosynthesis, metabolism, mortality risk). Because evolution and plasticity are just beginning to be incorporated into ecosystem models, EMBER will capitalize on a tremendous and exciting opportunity to use experimental data to directly inform model development. Ultimately, these activities will help scientists unravel linkages within and among levels of organization to reveal the underlying traits that predict biological responses to increasing and compounding environmental stress.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.- Subawards are planned for this award.

Regents Of The University Of Idaho

THE GOAL OF THIS FUNDING OPPORTUNITY, "BIOLOGY INTEGRATION INSTITUTES", IS IDENTIFIED IN THE LINK: HTTPS://WWW.NSF.GOV/PUBLICATIONS/PUB_SUMM.JSP?ODS_KEY=NSF23511

47.074 - Biological Sciences

Division of Biological Infrastructure (DBI) [NSF]

Moscow, Idaho 83844-9803 United States

Single Zip Code

Biology Integration Institutes (23-511)

Amendment Since initial award the total obligations have increased 92% from $2,669,046 to $5,131,692.