National Science Foundation grant supports Arkansas forest health study –

By JOHN LOVETT | University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture

Riparian zones, areas where forests and streams meet, are highly interconnected. However a general understanding of these areas is lacking because such work requires a combination of marine and terrestrial science.

That will soon change thanks to a $1 million National Science Foundation grant led by scientists from Arkansas and Virginia. Their work will examine how salinity affects the movement of resources such as carbon in nearby areas.

Natalie Clay, assistant professor of entomology and plant pathology for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, is joined by Michelle Evans-White, chair and professor of biological sciences at the University of Arkansas, and Sally Entrekin , a professor of marine biology at Virginia Tech, a three-year fact-finding mission to study the effect of salinity on ecosystems and organisms in the near-ocean region. The Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station is a research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.

Salts are minerals that can be valuable nutrients or impurities, depending on the amount and location. For forests far from the coast or salt rivers, salt is scarce and accepted in moderation by the life forms that need it to survive. However, in freshwater systems, scientists have reported undesirable salinization. Now, what about their meeting place—the beach?

“Marine scientists have approached salt in a completely different way than terrestrial systems, yet the two systems are connected,” Clay said. “They are often studied in silos. Earth people often don’t talk to aquatic people and aquatic people often don’t talk to terrestrial people, and the result is a general misunderstanding of these systems.”

“Understanding these terrestrial-aquatic connections is critical to advancing understanding of the pathways and impacts of biodiversity and food webs affected by global salinity,” Entrekin added.

The National Science Foundation is awarding $948,291 to three project researchers. Not only are they bringing two fields of science together, but they are bringing the next generation of scientists with them.

Crowdsourced data, some of which will be collected by K-12 students and teachers across the country, will strengthen the survey’s data and expose young people to a major scientific project to measure ocean chemistry. .

The crowdsourcing will be done with the Pennsylvania-based Stroud Water Research Center. Tara Muenz, assistant director of the Stroud Center for Education and Leaf Pack Network coordinator, leads the recruitment of volunteer stream monitoring partners such as the Virginia Stream Team, Izaak Walton’s Save-Our-Streams program League, SciStarter.org, Stroud Center’s Leaf Pack International. Internet and other professional networks.

A changing world

Around the world, desalination is an issue that scientists are paying attention to in both the world’s soil and freshwater systems because it can change water quality and plant productivity.

Freshwater desalination is often preceded by the release of salt from the earth from human activities such as urbanization, agricultural practices and road salting. However, predicting how salinity changes carbon cycling across river boundaries is not yet possible, Clay noted. Research supported by the National Science Foundation will help measure how salinity changes carbon cycling across land and water boundaries.

Carbon cycling is the process by which carbon atoms, the building blocks of all living things on Earth, continue to travel from the atmosphere to the soil and back to the atmosphere. Although the amount of carbon in the world does not change, the location of carbon atoms is always in flux.

“Salt is not available in the earth’s systems, unless you live on the coast, so adding a little bit causes this reaction of all kinds of organisms,” Clay said. “We see animals that show sodium-seeking behavior, so in global systems it’s often lacking.”

A salt mine

Clay and his co-researchers on the project predict that natural processes such as decomposition and respiration of the ecosystem and the riparian environment will respond better to salinity levels as sodium is essential nutrients for life. However, after the optimal level is reached, the environment is expected to decrease as salinity becomes stressful at dangerous levels and toxic at high levels.

Finding the threshold will explain the principles of how the aquatic and terrestrial systems respond to increased salinity across the salinization gradient, Clay explained.

Entrekin said identifying these thresholds will also help predict changes in aquatic insect diversity and their contribution to the aquatic and terrestrial food web.

“Our approach will combine and compare salinity performance in experimental riparian-stream mesocosms at the UA Biology Experimental Greenhouse with a light study to provide a better understanding of the effects of salinity on plants. in these integrated processes,” said Evans-White.

Mesocosm is a recreation of a system as close to nature as possible, but with the ability to be manipulated. If the results of the field and mesocosm can be compared, Clay said the mesocosm could become a useful tool in the future to gain a better understanding of terrestrial-aquatic interactions from different points of view.

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