Lter: advancing ecological understanding of drylands through integrated research at the jornada basin (JRN-8)

Active Project Grant Awarded Last action

Award ID
2425143
Recipient
Awarding agency
Obligated
$2,275,000

Award facts

Assistance listing
47.074 Biological Sciences
Completion date 28% complete
Place of performance
Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA

Award details come from USAspending.gov.

Description

Abstract
The jornada basin (JRN) long-term research team will study why and how grasslands in low rainfall areas are shifting to shrub and bare ground in the southwestern united states and beyond. Losing grassland ecosystems can negatively affect human well-being by reducing livestock production and increasing soil erosion. IT also changes how important elements, like carbon and nitrogen, flow through these ecosystems with consequences for carbon storage and water quality. This project aims to further advance understanding of this shift to shrublands by studying (1) how weather and land management affect the shift, (2) what happens to the flow of carbon and other elements, (3) how wind and water erosion could speed up the change in some cases, or even reverse IT in others, and (4) how microbes, plants, animals and their interactions influence how fast the loss of grassland happens. Along with the planned research, the team will continue to expand successful K-12 education programs that reach thousands of students and teachers annually through field trips, classroom visits, public events, teacher trainings, and internships. The team will also continue to work with land managers, in collaborations with USDA and other partners, to provide information and data about land health and build capacity for evidence-based decision making in the face of environmental change. This renewal of the JRN lter project will be organized around the site?S new pulse-interaction-reserve-feedback-change framework for understanding state changes in dryland ecosystems. This framework integrates consideration of temporal and spatial variability and alternative stable states to explain and predict changes in grassland habitats. The research team will measure primary production, carbon and inorganic nutrient cycles, and plant-animal interactions in response to changing rainfall, temperature, and land disturbances through observations and experiments. Novel modeling activities will examine hydrologic connectivity and leverage machine learning and long-term data to advance understanding of ecosystem state change. Results from this site and others show drylands are critical components of earth?S biogeochemical cycles and atmospheric gas concentrations. Long-term data and empirical insights derived from JRN research are expected to inform regional to global scale models and syntheses. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.- subawards are planned for this award.

Transactions

Action Obligated Date
Amendment $1,000,000
Original award $1,275,000

Subawards

Subrecipient Amount Awarded
Arizona State University Assess the effects of climate and land-use change on the functioning of plant and microbial communities as well as to assess the spatial interactions as… $702,157
The University Of Texas At El Paso Scope of Work Work for LTER: Advancing ecological understanding of drylands through integrated research at the Jornada Basin will be conducted at the Jornada… $53,043
University Of Illinois Support the overreaching goal of the renewal proposal by examining how populations of mammal consumers and their trophic interactions respond to pulses and… $66,919
Asombro Institute For Science Education, Inc. We will continue to refine and implement a comprehensive package of K-12 student and teacher programs for the Jornada Basin LTER-8. Components of the program… $87,750

Quick answers

Who received award 2425143?

2425143 was awarded to New Mexico State University by Division of Environmental Biology (National Science Foundation) on March 15, 2025.

How much is award 2425143 worth?

$2,275,000 has been obligated on 2425143.

On GovTribe

See this award's full record

  • Every transaction and subaward
  • The recipient's other awards and teaming partners
  • Similar grant awards
  • Ask GovTribe AI about this award