STEAM with Falmouth High School (NES)

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Ying Yang by Garret Bentley and Ness Uitti, 2018. Inspired by work at WHOI researcher Ann Tarrant's lab.

Several WHOI PIs have participated in the “STEAM” program with Falmouth High School art teacher Jane Baker. The STEAM educational movement advocates for the integration of Arts (“A”) into more traditional grouping of STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). For more information, visit Ann Tarrant’s website. Project Status: Completed

Q&A with Lauren Alteio: First isolation of giant virus genomes in soil from a forest ecosystem

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Soil sample collection from the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts.

Researchers Frederik Schulz (US Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute) and Lauren Alteio (University of Massachusetts) have discovered sixteen new giant viruses in soil samples from a long-term research site at the Harvard Forest LTER, described in a Nature Communications paper published in November 2018. Giant viruses are larger than most single celled organisms, and tend… Read more »

A Balancing Act for Coastal Freshwater Marshes

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On the boundaries of fresh and saltwater systems, coastal marshes give rise to diverse, productive ecosystems that act as carbon sinks. Their secret? Freshwater marsh plants receive just the right amount of nutrients and salt from periodic seawater tides to thrive. However, incursions of saltwater into these systems are increasing —often caused by drought and… Read more »

A Silver Lining in Arctic Permafrost Thaw

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Climate change is already impacting polar habitats such as the Arctic tundra, where increasing temperatures are causing permafrost to thaw and exposing soil and organic matter that have been buried for thousands of years. Many scientists predicted that this soil, once exposed, would release a massive amount of sequestered carbon into the atmosphere, contributing to… Read more »

LTER Road Trip: A Steep Transect at Coweeta Hydrologic Lab

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Leaf litter basket at transect #327, used to measure rates of leaf fall.

I paused at the top of Coweeta Hydrologic Lab’s transect #327, peering down, down, down at the slope beneath me. Katie Bower, a research technician at Coweeta, and two summer interns had already started down the narrow pathway, accustomed to its slippery leaf layer and sharp contours. Taking a deep breath, I followed slowly behind.

2018 Ocean Science Meeting Presentations

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The Ocean Sciences Meeting (OSM) has become an important venue for scientific exchange across a wide range of marine science disciplines, especially as human impacts on the oceans reach unprecedented levels. OSM, co-sponsored by the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), and The Oceanography Society (TOS), will be held 11–16 February, in… Read more »

2017 AGU Presentations

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AGU logo

At the 2017 AGU Fall Meeting, held at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, from December 11-15, 2017, dozens of LTER researchers will present new results on a range of topics, from how ecosystems recover from droughts and hurricanes to what manufactured ice storms can reveal about how to prepare for winter’s worst. Links to the abstracts for over 100 LTER presentations at AGU 2017.

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