This award will create a Research Coordination Network to bring together ecologists, ecosystem scientists, ecophysiologists, hydrologists and atmospheric scientists interested in using stable isotopes to better understand the controls on gas exchange processes, to understand the relationships between water and gas exchange and climatic factors, and to stimulate interdisciplinary cooperation, collaboration and training through workshops, national and international meetings, and student exchanges. This RCN continues the work of a prior RCN, but broadens and refocuses the network to push for better integration of stable isotopes in the ecohydrological studies with a new emphasis on transpiration and evaporation processes. A strong focus of this RCN will be on water in biological, hydrological and atmospheric systems and on how the hydrological cycle has been changed as land-use change and urbanization have intensified. This RCN will have broader impacts for human resources by providing graduate and post-doctoral training opportunities and involving underrepresented groups from the United States and abroad in scientific activities that highlight the use of stable isotopes across the disciplines of biology, hydrology and atmospheric
The Biogeosphere-Atmosphere-Stable Isotope Network, BASIN, was an NSF-sponsored Research Coordination Network (RCN) dedicated to advancing understanding and fostering interactions and exchange among scientists at all levels of their carriers who develop and use stable isotope methods and data in biological, ecological, hydrological, biogeochemical, and atmospheric research areas. The BASIN program ran for 10 years under two separate grant awards from the NSF-RCN program. Its primary role was to sponsor workshops, conferences, scholarly exchange visits, and student and postdoctoral education, outreach and training on the application of stable isotope information across the diversity of aforementioned scientific fields. After the second five-year period in existence, the official BASIN membership stands at 172 academic or professional researchers. The membership is based in 34 countries but 70% of the membership are United States citizens. There are an additional 31 BASIN participants who are/were employed by one of 6 companies who attend BASIN activities on a regular basis or from 5 governmental or non-governmental agencies who work on some aspect of stable isotope science. During the past five years BASIN sponsored 35 different activities or events that supported 222 people so they could participate (in workshops, meetings, scientific exchange opportunities, training courses and visits, and annual isotope conferences); 69% of these were early-career scientists (students and pos-docs). In addition to its success in advancing education, outreach and training, BASIN also produced (1) a sampling database in collaboration with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center, ORNL DAAC (http://daac.ornl.gov), (2) an outreach website used to announce upcoming meetings and workshops, where an introductory tutorial on stable isotopes and their ecological and biogeochemical cycle applications is hosted, and where job postings can be found (http://basinisotopes.org), (3) established the Dr. Elizabeth Sulzman Award for the best student presentation (poster and talk) at the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall meeting in San Francisco, and (4) helped to publish two books, one book chapter and eight peer-reviewed journal articles that reported on outcomes from BASIN-sponsored meetings and activities. All of the BASIN activities and related publications have contributed to enhancing our understanding and knowledge of stable isotopes in biogeosphere-atmosphere interactions.
