Researchers at the University of Idaho have recently received a grant worth $15 million from the National Science Foundation’s Biology Integration Institutes (BII). This grant supports the study of impacts made by drought and fire on forest ecosystems.
The grant will allow for the funding of the Embedding Molecular Biology in Ecosystem Research (EMBER) Institute.
Tara Hudiburg, principal investigator for EMBER and professor in the Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Fire Sciences, told the university, “We are looking at how stress caused by increasing drought and wildfire affects forest recovery and resilience. Is this extra stress going to change how these ecosystems respond to climate change? Will they continue to mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration? Will they get better at it? Is there anything we can do to improve resistance? Those are the questions we’re asking.”
EMBER seeks to bring together researchers from a variety of institutions and backgrounds. To accomplish this, EMBER had to “go pretty far outside of our comfort zone and start talking to people [EMBER has] never interacted with before scientifically,” in the words of Laurel Lynch, co-principal investigator on EMBER and assistant professor in the Department of Soil and Water Systems.
For instance, the EMBER team brings together two disciplines that usually work separately – experimentalists and modelers. By creating a large collaboration, the team hopes to impact the way the world tackles climate change.
“It’s not a big leap for us to be able to say that we will be impacting the world,” Hudiburg said.
EMBER will also being partner with the Coeur d’Alene Tribe and the Bonneville Environmental Foundation to establish an Indigenous Innovation Lab as a community outreach program.
Chris Nomura, Vice President for Research and Economic Development, said in a press release, “This award is well suited to the research expertise of our faculty leads here at the University of Idaho. Their approach to understanding physiological and acclimation strategies for trees and microbes and methods to identify the impact of fire and drought on interactions between microbes and trees will inform predictions of ecosystem response to these events. This is truly an outstanding team that has put in a tremendous effort to obtain this award, and I expect great things from them going forward.”
Rebekah Weaver can be reached at [email protected].