This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Support from the MRI-R2 program was provided to support the purchase of an Gas Chromatograph (GC) to provide on-site capabilities for research projects in ecosystem and restoration ecology, microbiology, and chemistry at Northern Kentucky University (NKU). Research with the new instrumentation is focused on understanding how community plant dynamics influence the flux of greenhouse gases (e.g. nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, and methane) in aquatic ecosystems. Specific projects focus on managing and restoring aquatic systems to minimize greenhouse gas emissions. Additional research is being conducted to examine microbial ecosystem dynamics within starved, subterranean cave environments. The GC system will allow an expansion of research capabilities to examine the role of methanogenesis, fermentative hydrogen production and nitrogen fixing and cycling in community energetics. Data from these studies provide for a better understanding about what drives greenhouse gas fluxes in aquatic systems, which is critical when proposing ecosystem management strategies to curb global warming. Also, understanding the factors that induce mutualistic interactions and energetic associations in microbial communities, we may better understand the factors that render the majority of microbial species unculturable in the laboratory. NKU is a regional university serving the Greater Cincinnati metropolitan area. The university is primarily an undergraduate institution dedicated to hands on research as a teaching tool. In support of this rationale, the Biology Department puts a heavy emphasis on undergraduate research experience. The GC will allow faculty at NKU to mentor undergraduate students in additional field and lab techniques on an instrument that is commonly used in industry, and academic labs. Professors in both the Biology and Chemistry Departments at NKU will also utilize the GC in hands-on courses to demonstrate analysis of known and unknown gases to expand the teaching potential of this machine. Data and findings from the research and education activities enabled by the GC system will be disseminated through student and faculty presentations at regional and national meetings, and through publication in peer-reviewed journals.
Acquiring the Agilent Gas Chromatograph (GC) at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) has allowed us to ask pertinent research questions, expand our environmental research activities with our undergraduate students, and add hands-on learning to our biology and chemistry courses. The PI’s research lab has analyzed over 3000+ samples thus far to better understand the movement of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide) into and out of our atmosphere from aquatic ecosystems. The amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere is directly linked to global climate change. These samples have been from five different research projects. The first project focused on wetland restoration. We examined how different methods of restoring a wetland might lead to different amounts of greenhouse gases being emitted to the atmosphere. We found that amending the soil with grass clippings allowed for improvement of water quality via removal of nitrogen. Our second project investigated the removal of nitrogen from riparian areas along an urban to rural gradient. We found the urban area had the highest rates of nitrogen removal, but are still completing our full data analysis. Our third and fourth projects focus on the invasive shrub, Amur honeysuckle, and how it may influence greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. The third project examined how ecosystem processes change after the invasive shrub is removed from an area and natives are allowed to re-establish. This is an ongoing project; however, so far we have seen tremendous differences between the restored site and the control site where honeysuckle is still dominant. The fourth project is studying how the invasive shrub influences the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from ephemeral ponds in the Ohio River floodplain. Our current data from this ongoing project demonstrates that plots with high density of young invasive honeysuckle are emitting more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than the plots dominated by native species. Our fifth project is beginning to investigate whether green roofs in urban areas contribute greenhouse gases to or remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. To date, 16 undergraduate students from NKU have been trained on how to measure greenhouse gases in the field, prepare standard vials for the GC, and how to process and analyze the data output from the GC. Through these efforts, the research students have honed their skills in ecological field research, working with gas samples, processing analytical data, and statistical analyses. The undergraduate research students have also participated in outreach activities. The PI’s lab regularly participates in NKU’s Environmental Education Days and High School STEM Days by having the research students teach regional grades 6-12 students about their ecosystem research with the GC. The Agilent gas chromatograph has also been incorporated into biology and chemistry curriculum at NKU. The GC is used as a focus of discussion and demonstration in the Instrumental Analysis course (CHE 350). Students learn how a GC analysis can be conducted using different detectors simultaneously, and what useful information can be obtained. We are working on developing a more in depth experiment using the instrument in this course. To date 20 students have worked with the instrument in CHE 350. The GC was also used in the Ecosystem Ecology course (BIO 406) in fall 2012. Nine students learned to collect greenhouse gas samples in the field and analyze them on the GC. This course will continue to be taught every two years. Products from this funded proposal are just beginning to be released and will continue to be released long into the future as research using the GC continues. We have currently submitted one manuscript for peer-review publication and are in the writing and data analysis phase for five more research manuscripts that we anticipate submitting for publication in the next four months. All of the research students have presented their research through poster presentations at local and regional scientific conferences. This allows students to practice their skills communicating science. The PI has presented findings at one national conference and two international conferences. In summary, with this funded proposal, we have trained and mentored 45 undergraduate students to use and understand the GC, 16 of which presented their research findings to others, we have discussed the GC and its research capabilities with 100+ area K-12 students, and we have current plans to publish six peer-reviewed papers.
