BioEPIC will provide a collaborative environment to enhance existing research through a suite of next-generation tools. These will dramatically improve scientists’ ability to conduct controlled experiments on interactions between soil, microbes, and plants. Instruments and computing infrastructure will virtually connect BioEPIC to relevant field observatories enabling the rapid transfer of insights discovered in the laboratory to the dynamic environments in the field.
Scientists are advancing understanding of belowground biogeochemistry in the soil-plant-climate system to inform prediction models.
ENIGMA Science Focus Area researchers collaborate to create a predictive model of the impacts of microbial communities on critical processes within an ecosystem.
Researchers in this Science Focus Area strive to understand and control the microscopic organisms that live on plant roots to support sustainable bioenergy.
Researchers in this Science Focus Area develop methods and tools to measure and predict how droughts and other perturbations impact downstream water availability and quality at various timescales.
Through this project, scientists create, validate, and disseminate EcoFAB technologies complete with standardized model microbial communities tailored for the microbiome science community.
Researchers aim to pilot “twin” ecosystems in the laboratory and field that use sensors and autonomous controls to study changes in root secretions during drought stress to see if they select for beneficial microbes.
Our researchers use cryo-electron microscopy techniques to reveal structural information about proteins and infer function.
The EcoBOT is an automated all-in-one station that integrates EcoFABs and liquid handling robots to study plants in their microbiomes as they grow.
EcoFABs, or fabricated ecosystems, are sterile laboratory devices that enable controlled plant-microbiome studies under conditions where they can be imaged and sampled.
EcoPODs are enclosed environments that allow direct and intensive monitoring and manipulation of replicated plant-soil-microbe-atmosphere interactions over the complete plant life cycle.
Scientists develop and deploy novel sensing and monitoring tools and (data integration, and model simulation capabilities) associated analytical and telemetry capabilities to quantify interactions between key environmental factors and biological functioning within ecosystems, from laboratory to testbed to the field.
When combined with novel sensors and next-generation data capabilities, this advanced simulation framework will enable improved prediction of complex ecosystems under dynamic, real-world conditions.
The SMART Soils testbed is a fabricated ecosystem for controlled soil ecosystem studies that utilize novel-sensing approaches to better understand plant-soil-microbe interactions.
