Nutrient turnover in grassland soils
Grassland soils contain a significant portion of the Earth’s carbon, yet the mechanisms that influence nutrient cycling in these ecosystems are not well understood. In collaboration with the laboratories of Prof. Jill Banfield (UC Berkeley) and Dr. Chongle Pan (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) we are performing multi-omics analyses of soils at Angelo Coastal Reserve to examine the interrelationships between microbial communities and metabolites surrounding Fall rainfalls. I am then using stable isotope probing to determine direct linkages between the sequenced microbial communities and the compounds identified using untargeted exometabolomics.
pfandeer@lbl.gov