This PIRE project will enable a partnership of U.S., Senegalese, and French researchers and students to examine how native shrubs of the Sahel region influence soil moisture and soil microbial composition and how such shrubs, when planted with food crops, might represent a new biologically-based way to improve production in semi-arid agroecosystems. The vulnerable environment of the Sahel is threatened by desertification and soil degradation, seriously reducing agricultural productivity and negatively impacting local communities. In the Sahel, woody shrubs co-exist with row crops and are cut back and burned every spring. The team's previous research on the two dominant shrub species of the Sahel, Guiera senegalensis and Piliostigma reticulatum, documented their ability to draw water from wet sub-surface soil to dry surface soil and to grow unique microbial communities around their roots. The PIRE team will examine whether the hydraulic lifting of water by shrubs can reduce water stress to nearby crops during dry periods and whether the shrubs' root-zone microbial communities stimulate adjacent crop growth, for example by enhancing nitrogen fixation. They will also test the potential of these shrubs to sequester carbon in their roots zones and to improve soils more than manure, composts, or planting other trees. This team's fundamental hydrologic and soil microbiology research should provide the information needed to develop of a set of shrub-crop systems that reduces drought effects and optimizes plant growth via microbial enhancement. Such agricultural systems could restore currently degraded landscapes and lead to sustainable agroecosystems in the Sahel. These outcomes could benefit all countries in the Sahel which together have almost 15 million hectares (60,000 square miles) of semi-arid land that are largely now farmed with destructive agricultural practices. The PIRE interdisciplinary and international research team brings together the requisite expertise in molecular microbiology, hydrology, soil physics, plant ecology and agronomy to undertake and complete this important real-world project.
The educational impacts of this PIRE project include strengthening the existing long-term partnerships among scientists committed to mentoring and training an international cadre of students. This project will deliver a program of transformative cross-cultural, language building, and international research experiences by: 1) providing U.S. undergraduates summer research internships in Africa; 2) enabling U.S. Ph.D. students to conduct their dissertation research in Africa; 3) engaging U.S. students in public outreach about their international experiences -- at local schools, in a "pen pal" program between U.S. and Senegalese schoolchildren, and via a student blog on the PIRE website; 4) training U.S. early career scientists and Ph.D.s in tropical microbial ecology and hydrology through the MicroTrop training program and; 5) exposing all participants to the ecological challenges of the Sahel within a rural poverty context. The active participation of faculty and students from Central State University, a Historically Black University, will help this PIRE project meet its goal to enhance the recruitment of females and underrepresented minorities in science. An important outcome of the PIRE activities will be the participants' shared experiences that will inevitably produce lifelong interactions and international linkages.
The project will strengthen the capacity of the U.S. institutions to internationalize their research, scientific networks, student training, and curricula. The PIRE project will link and reinforce the complementary strengths of many units (e.g., international affairs, African studies offices, international agriculture programs, and language departments) both within and between Ohio State and Central State Universities to develop a cohesive program for pre-departure cultural orientation, language training, and logistical support for PIRE participants. The comprehensive educational and research effort of this PIRE project will be a model for U.S. universities to conduct state-of-the art environmental research in a developing country within a natural resource and rural poverty context.
The PIRE project funds will also be leveraged with other funding for additional outreach and application of results in Africa. For example, the PI and his institution will conduct a US Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded project developing an Agroecology Degree Program at the University of Gaston Berger (UGB) in Senegal, including E-education and distance learning collaborations. The PIRE team and its research and education efforts will enrich the content of the USAID education project and complement USAID's initiative on Food Security for Africa.
U.S. institutions include: Ohio State University at Columbus and at Wooster; University of California at Merced; USDA-Agricultural Research Service (ARS) at Oregon State University; and Central State University (OH). Foreign partners include: University of Thies (Senegal); Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles (ISRA) (Senegal); Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) (France); IRD Laboratory of Tropical Microbial Ecology (LTME) (Senegal); and IRD Laboratoire Commun de Microbiologie (France).
This project is cofunded by NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering and the Division of Environmental Biology.
