This cooperative research award supports Carol Arnosti and a graduate student from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to collaborate with B.B. Jorgensen of the Department of Biogeochemistry at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany. The focus of the research is the complex community of bacteria responsible for transforming macromolecular organic matter, ultimately reducing it to CO2. The collaboration allows a unique blend of complementary expertise, since the U.S. side has experience in the study of the initial steps of organic matter remineralization and the German group has experience studying the final stages. The rates and pathways of carbon remineralization in marine sediments profoundly affect carbon cycling on local as well as global scales. The composition and dynamics of the diverse group of microbes responsible for remineralization of organic carbon, however, are largely unknown, and the rate-controlling steps in the remineralization process only poorly understood. By focusing on the links between the initial and terminal steps in remineralization, the collaborative project should lead to greater insight into these key steps of the carbon cycle.
