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Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology

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Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Biogeochemistry

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Evaluating Innovative Methods Of Quantitatively Linking Microbial Community Structure To Ecosystem Function, Jeth Gv Walkup Jan 2023

Evaluating Innovative Methods Of Quantitatively Linking Microbial Community Structure To Ecosystem Function, Jeth Gv Walkup

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Microbial functional diversity is the product of community structure and intraspecific trait variation. Due to microbial diversity and limited availability of microbial trait measurements, it has been challenging to quantitatively link community structure to microbial function. Although community-level activity rates vary with community composition, issues in the scale of their measurement inhibit our understanding of their relationship. Quantitative stable isotope probing (qSIP) is a method for quantitatively measuring taxon-specific microbial traits, providing new opportunities to apply trait-based approaches for studying microbial ecology. Quantitative microbial trait data from these experiments enables the functional characterization of microbial communities, potentially enabling the extrapolation …


Cross-Kingdom Interactions Shape Soil Biogeochemistry In Natural And Agricultural Ecosystems, Jennifer Lynne Kane Jan 2022

Cross-Kingdom Interactions Shape Soil Biogeochemistry In Natural And Agricultural Ecosystems, Jennifer Lynne Kane

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Microorganisms influence life on earth in innumerable ways, including in medical, industrial, environmental, and agricultural contexts. Given the increasingly apparent consequences of climate warming, interest in how to better predict and manage Earth’s carbon sinks has never been greater. Soil, the largest terrestrial carbon sink, harbors an incredibly taxonomically and functionally diverse microbial community. These soil-dwelling microbes govern the fate of soil carbon and nutrients by cycling organic matter as they live, grow, and die. It has only been relatively recently that technological advancement has allowed for in-depth surveys of the vast diversity of soil microbes. High throughput analytical capabilities …


Microbial Responses To Unconventional Oil And Gas Development May Alter Ecosystem Function In Headwater Streams, Rachel Michaels Jan 2020

Microbial Responses To Unconventional Oil And Gas Development May Alter Ecosystem Function In Headwater Streams, Rachel Michaels

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The demand for natural gas, and the need for efficient extraction, has led to the development of unconventional oil and natural gas (UOG) techniques. Due to the novelty of UOG, the potential impacts to freshwater ecosystems are not fully understood. We used a dual pronged approach to study the effects of UOG development on microbial biodiversity and function via a laboratory microcosm experiment and a survey study of streams with and without UOG development within their watersheds. The laboratory microcosm study simulated stream contamination with produced water, a byproduct of UOG operation, using sediment collected from one high water-quality stream …