CZIMEA

CZIMEA is an EarthCube integrative activities project with the goal to lay the groundwork for the whole-earth analysis and simulation capability by bringing critical zone scientists together with hands-on training to test available cyberinfrastructure tools with comprehensive multiparameter datasets spanning a wide range of scales. The project will further improve access to the products of critical zone research by promoting the sharing, standardization, synthesis and analysis of biogeochemical and metagenomic data via EarthCube cyberinfrastructure, enabling a broader array of geosciences communities to shape future EarthCube activities and outcomes. Project findings and products will be used to inform future EarthCube development through the activity of the PIs and collaborators in the EarthCube Science Committee and Technology and Architecture Committee, as well as through the broader engagement of critical zone scientists into EarthCube activities.

The project leverages the Critical Zone Observatory Network representing a wide range of hydrogeological provinces, soil orders, and biomes. At each site, we collected soils to a depth of 1 m at 10 cm increments.

In addition to sampling two of the many sites for this project, my major contribution is the measurement of extracellular enzyme (EE) activities. Soil EEs are the principal agents of organic matter decomposition and nutrient mineralization, yet the vast majority of studies examining EE activities have been confined to only the upper soil layers (< 20 cm depth). While the controls of EE activity in the topsoil are reasonably well-understood, we know little of how these enzyme activities change with soil depth. The controls and subsequent patterns of EE activity at depth may diverge from those at the soil surface due to changing physical, chemical, and nutritional conditions in subsurface soils.

Check out these recently published papers on this project looking at changes in extracellular enzymes (led by me) and the microbial community.