1994 — 2001 |
Gray, Kimberly (co-PI) [⬀] Lamberti, Gary |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Environmental Stress in Ecosystems: Linking Ecology and Engineering @ University of Notre Dame
Environmental scientists must be able to synthesize diverse information about the biological, chemical, and physical attributes of perturbed ecosystems. We propose to train students broadly in the environmental sciences to produce professionals with the breadth of knowledge needed to address serious and complex environmental problems. A single-discipline approach is inadequate to identify, solve, and avoid environmental degradation. Yet, graduate programs have been slow to move beyond the traditional boundaries of colleges and departments to develop rigorous and comprehensive degree programs that integrate disciplines. Our proposed training program in environmental science will foster integration of students, faculty, curricula, facilities, and knowledge from two major disciplines: Ecology and Environmental Engineering. Our training program will encourage the development of integrated research efforts needed to address real-world situations of environmental perturbation and mitigations. We will accomplish this with a combination of: (1) traditional coursework in three primary research areas (Environmental Chemistry, Organismal Biology, and Aquatic Ecology), (2) innovative field training modules covering six critical subdisciplines in environmental science, (3) in-depth instructional training for the students, and (4) active recruitment of minority students for the program. We view a training grant from NSF as a major step in coordinating the active graduate programs in environmental science and engineering at the University of Notre Dame.
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0.915 |
1998 — 2000 |
Lamberti, Gary |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Dissertation Research: Effects of Dissolved Organic Carbon On Nitrification Rates in Aquatic Ecosystems @ University of Notre Dame
98-01090 Lamberti/Strauss DDIG: Effects of dissolved organic carbon on nitrification rates in aquatic ecosystems Nitrogen can be present in many forms in aquatic ecosystems and the health of these ecosystems is dependent, in part, on natural transformations between the different forms. One transformation, termed nitrification, is a bacterial process in which ammonium is converted to nitrate. Nitrification is important because the end product, nitrate, can cause nutrient pollution in lakes and streams leading to excessive growth of aquatic plants. High concentrations of nitrate in drinking water also have been linked to several human health problems. Our preliminary experiments suggest that the quantity of organic carbon dissolved in water may control nitrification rates. We will conduct several experiments using stream and lake sediments, the site of most nitrification, to investigate the influence of organic carbon on nitrification rates. Our basic hypothesis is that increasing quantity and quality of organic carbon will reduce nitrification because other bacteria will outcompete nitrifying bacteria for ammonium.
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0.915 |
1998 — 2000 |
Lamberti, Gary |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Dissertation Research: Role of Ecological Stoichiometry in Plant-Herbivore Interactions: a Test in Stream Ecosystems @ University of Notre Dame
98-01090 Lamberti/Strauss DDIG: Effects of dissolved organic carbon on nitrification rates in aquatic ecosystems Nitrogen can be present in many forms in aquatic ecosystems and the health of these ecosystems is dependent, in part, on natural transformations between the different forms. One transformation, termed nitrification, is a bacterial process in which ammonium is converted to nitrate. Nitrification is important because the end product, nitrate, can cause nutrient pollution in lakes and streams leading to excessive growth of aquatic plants. High concentrations of nitrate in drinking water also have been linked to several human health problems. Our preliminary experiments suggest that the quantity of organic carbon dissolved in water may control nitrification rates. We will conduct several experiments using stream and lake sediments, the site of most nitrification, to investigate the influence of organic carbon on nitrification rates. Our basic hypothesis is that increasing quantity and quality of organic carbon will reduce nitrification because other bacteria will outcompete nitrifying bacteria for ammonium.
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0.915 |
2001 — 2003 |
Lamberti, Gary Tank, Jennifer [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Sger: Linking Marine-Dderived Nutrients to Stream Ecosystem Function Using a 15n Tracer Addition Combined With An Experimental Salmon Carcass Addition. @ University of Notre Dame
Abstract
Tank 0120845
Anadromous salmon are the life-blood of the Pacific Northwest, on which are based considerable economic, social, and cultural values. Normally, a massive quantity of organic material is transported from the ocean to streams annually via salmon migration. Presently, salmon stocks have declined, and lawmakers, resource managers, and the scientific community are beginning to ask what role salmon carcasses play in stream ecosystems. The PIs will address this critical knowledge gap by tracing the flow of the heavy isotope of nitrogen (15N) added to an Alaskan stream before, during, and after a salmon carcass addition. This will quantify how the pulse of marine derived nutrients (MDN) alters rates of stream N cycling from both a food web and whole-stream perspective. This research builds on the insight gained from an ongoing USDA-funded study by using the 15N tracer technique in a novel way and will help to clarify the role MDN plays in stream ecosystems.
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0.915 |
2002 — 2009 |
Lodge, David [⬀] Lodge, David [⬀] Lamberti, Gary |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Irceb: Ecological Forecasting and Risk Analysis of Nonindigenous Species @ University of Notre Dame
Intellectual merit. Numbers of nonindigenous species--species introduced from elsewhere - are increasing rapidly worldwide. They are a major cause of biodiversity loss and environmental change, and are estimated to cost the US $137 billion/yr. The 2001 National Invasive Species Management Plan (www.invasivespecies.gov) highlighted the urgent need for more rigorous and comprehensive risk analysis frameworks for nonindigenous species so that prevention and control strategies can be targeted appropriately. The central public policy consideration is how much of society's resources should be expended in response to nonindigenous species, and how, for example, should it be allocated between prevention and control? These considerations, though, include a nexus of interacting ecological and economic factors that require interdisciplinary effort. Species invasions are caused by economic activities, and in turn affect economic activities. This ecological and economic linkage and feedback means that the assessment of risk interacts with the management of risk, which contradicts the common notion that risk assessment and risk management are independent. Social welfare and risk assessment are both determined jointly by ecological and economic processes. In response to the need for interdisciplinary risk analysis, this project brings together experts from invasion biology, mathematical modeling, and economics. The main goal is to develop and apply a bio-economic modeling framework for nonindigenous species that integrates risk assessment and risk management, includes uncertainty distributions, and optimizes prevention and control strategies in a landscape context. The overall bio-economic model uses Stochastic Dynamic Programming, which allows the investigators to incorporate ecological-economic feedbacks in such a way to optimize combinations of prevention and control strategies to maximize social welfare. This framework will be extended to the landscape scale with Neural Network models. The applications will focus on freshwater nonindigenous species in the Great Lakes region. A preliminary application to zebra mussels suggested, for example, that society should be spending about $240,000/yr to keep zebra mussels from invading each lake with a power plant (to prevent fouling of pipes). This is in sharp contrast to the $825,000 that the Fish & Wildlife Service spent in FY2001 for prevention and control efforts for all aquatic nuisance species for all lakes. Our analyses will be directly relevant to policymakers and natural resource managers. Broader impacts. The investigators will partner with the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago to educate schoolchildren and the public about the general problem of nonindigenous species, about what individuals can do to reduce the problem, and about the role that science plays in public policy decisions. By partnering with an educational software firm, they will convert research models into user-friendly formats for use by schoolchildren, the public, policymakers, resource managers, and stakeholders. In partnership with the Great Lakes Commission, research methods, results, and user-friendly products will be disseminated in workshops to policymakers, managers, and stakeholders. Finally, they will develop international collaborations and a reciprocal exchange of information and techniques with top researchers in Australia, where NIS research is advanced relative to North America.
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0.915 |
2005 — 2012 |
Lodge, David (co-PI) [⬀] Lodge, David (co-PI) [⬀] Feder, Jeffrey [⬀] Lamberti, Gary Fuentes, Agustin Besansky, Nora (co-PI) [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Igert: Global Linkages of Biology, Environment, and Society (Globes) @ University of Notre Dame
This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) award supports the establishment of a new interdisciplinary graduate program in Global Linkages of Biology, Environment and Society (GLOBES) at the University of Notre Dame. The program integrates research, training, and educational activities among complementary faculty in ecology, evolution and environment, infectious disease, and social science, ethics, law and economics. The goal of the program is to train a new generation of Ph.D. scientists capable of designing and implementing sound scientific solutions to environmental problems within the framework of human culture, economics, policy, and law. Human practices and activities affecting environmental and global health have interrelated causes and feedbacks. These feedbacks are both biological and social, and exacerbate environmental degradation and the spread of invasive species and disease. Consequently, solutions to increasingly linked environmental and health problems require the coordinated interaction of biological and social scientists with expertise in ecology, evolution, infectious disease, anthropology, ethics, law, policy, and economics. The intellectual merit of this IGERT consists of the integration of the research and education activities of life and social scientists at the University of Notre Dame in a concerted effort to understand and find solutions to five specific problems: (1) invasive species in the Great Lake and their cascading effects on ecosystems (2) interactions of human land-use change and malaria transmission in West Africa; (3) cross-primate exchange of disease on the island of Bali, (4) resurgence of schistosomiasis in China driven by changes in water- and land-use patterns, and (5) impacts of invasive Sudden Oak Death as it spreads across the U.S. Without interdisciplinary thinking, relatively simple and effective measures to reduce environmental damage and disease transmission can go unrecognized. Most analyses suffer from concentrating on only one aspect of the question (e.g., ecology, culture, or disease). This IGERT will foster cross-disciplinary conversation and guide research directed at developing prevention and control responses to invasive species and disease that are scientifically sound, culturally acceptable, and cost-effective. The IGERT will use a coordinated set of approaches ranging from team-based research projects to outreach service activities to provide students with the interdisciplinary skills and knowledge they need to tackle the increasingly complex environmental and global health problems of our nation and the planet. The broader impacts of this proposal include finding solutions to these environmental and health problems. IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.
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0.915 |
2008 — 2010 |
Lamberti, Gary Costello, David (co-PI) [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Dissertation Research: Modeling the Effects of Invasive Earthworms On Watershed Nitrogen Dynamics @ University of Notre Dame
Most of the earthworms commonly found in the U.S. are non-native, originating in Europe and transported to and around the U.S. by human activities. Although viewed as beneficial in farm fields and gardens, these invasive earthworms are damaging deciduous forests. Earthworms feed on fallen leaves, and can remove an entire autumn's leaf fall in less than one year. Without a protective leaf layer, exposed forest soils are subject to erosion, seedling death, and nutrient loss. In soils invaded by earthworms, rainwater can rapidly transport mineral nutrients away from plant roots and into nearby streams or lakes. A spatial, mathematical model of the Kalamazoo River, MI, watershed will be used to study how earthworms in forests and farm fields increase the amount of nitrogen in river ecosystems.
Nitrogen pollution of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems is of great current concern. Nitrogen transported from land to streams and lakes pollutes those water bodies and has been implicated in causing the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico. Many strategies, such as vegetation buffer strips, are being used to remove nitrogen before it can pollute waterways, yet earthworms may be hindering the ability of plants to remove nitrogen. Invasive earthworms are continually being transported to new areas as fishing bait, in potted plants, and on truck tires. Once earthworms invade, they are nearly impossible to remove. A mathematical model of earthworm invasion will be used to highlight areas of the landscape that should be managed to slow the loss of nitrogen. This study will provide strategies needed by land managers to control earthworms and thereby protect forests and aquatic habitats.
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0.915 |
2011 — 2015 |
Maginn, Edward (co-PI) [⬀] Lamberti, Gary Zhu, Yingxi (Elaine) Shah, Jindal (co-PI) [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
An Integrated Molecular Simulation, Biophysical Experimentation and Toxicology Bioassay Approach For Mechanistic Understanding of Toxic Effects of Ionic Liquids @ University of Notre Dame
PI: Jindal Shah Proposal Number: 1134238
The primary goal of this research is to understand the molecular level mechanisms of toxicity of ionic liquids, an emerging class of industrial solvents, and how such mechanisms manifest at a systems level to result in toxicity to a given organism. The proposed research will be guided by the as-yet unproven hypothesis that ionic liquids directly interact with the phospholipid bilayer and thereby compromise membrane integrity. An interdisciplinary team of biologists, chemical engineers, and molecular modelers will collaborate on this project. Toxicological bioassay experiments will be carried out to determine the ionic liquid concentrations EC50 that cause a 50% reduction in growth of microbes relative to a control. Single molecule spectroscopy and imaging experiments will be used to determine the morphology and dynamics of model lipid bilayers around the EC50 concentrations. Advanced molecular dynamics simulations will be carried out at the same concentrations to quantify structural and dynamical quantities for the lipid bilayer along with details on the molecular-level motion of the bilayer. The simulations will also be used to determine the structure and dynamics of ionic liquid species at the lipid bilayer interface, information that is difficult to obtain experimentally. Two types of organisms will be studied for toxicological bioassays: the alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and the bacterium Escherichia coli. A neutral-lipid bilayer and a negatively-charged lipid bilayer will serve as model organism membranes. Two very different classes of ionic liquids will be investigated. The first set of ionic liquids will be based on 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium cations with varying alkyl chain length paired with anions such as chloride and bistrifluoromethylsulfonylimide, which have been studied in great detail and are likely to be manufactured in large quantities. The second set of ionic liquids will be comprised of the cation tetrabutylphosphonium with similar anions. These ionic liquids and their variations are less toxic than imidazolium-based ionic liquids and currently being studied as potential CO2 capture solvents. The work is inspired by the fact that ionic liquids defined as pure salts that are liquid at ambient conditions ? have emerged as promising new solvents for a range of technological applications including gas separations, lubrication, batteries, and as therapeutic agents. An explosion in ionic liquid research within academia and industry coupled with increasing likelihood of adoption of ionic liquids by industry has resulted in an urgent need to understand the environmental impact of these materials in terms of their fate, transport, and toxicity towards organisms. A number of toxicity bioassay studies have suggested that alkyl chain length, anion type, and lipophilicity all play a role in ionic liquid toxicity. However, a fundamental molecular level understanding of how these factors contribute to toxicity and how they can be manipulated to achieve desired toxicity characteristics of ionic liquids is lacking. To address this critical gap in knowledge, the proposed linked molecular simulation, biophysical experimentation, and toxicity bioassay approach is highly promising as it will result in a greater mechanistic understanding of ionic liquid toxicity than would be possible by a single technique alone. Although the proposed research is targeted at two classes of ionic liquids, the fundamental understanding gained has broad implications and can be integrated into the rational design of less toxic ionic liquids which will lead to development of chemical processes and products with reduced environmental footprint. This work also benefits current efforts aimed at exploiting therapeutic properties of ionic liquids, where knowledge of ionic liquid interactions with the lipid bilayer is critical. The study will provide essential information on the characteristics of the cell membrane that determine susceptibility to disruption by ionic liquids, which may ultimately enable the engineering of microorganisms able to transport ionic liquids inside the cell for biodegradation of ionic liquids. Another major goal of this research is to teach and train students how to make an intellectual connection between molecular level interactions and the manifestation of such interactions at a systems level by working in an interdisciplinary experimental/computational environment. Efforts to recruit women and students from underrepresented groups will follow the PI?s proven methods and will build on several existing programs at Notre Dame. A wide dissemination of the results from this activity to a broader audience is planned through the Notre Dame Public Affairs Office
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0.915 |