Project Grant 2517620

This $165,410 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) is funding research at North Carolina State University to better understand the biophysical drivers of methane source-sink transitions in northern forests. The key research objectives are to: 1) Identify the roles and response of soil microbial communities in driving methane flux across environmental gradients; 2) Quantify how wet vs. dry microsites and above- vs. below-ground forest components contribute to seasonal and annual methane fluxes; and 3) Integrate field/lab data to improve ecosystem process models for predicting methane sink/source activity over time. The project will leverage observations and experiments at the Howland Research Forest in Maine to achieve these goals. The award supports training of graduate/undergraduate students and postdoctoral scholars, as well as public outreach activities on this important climate change research. This work aims to enhance understanding of the conditions that could shift northern forests from being methane sinks to sources, with potential implications for regional and global atmospheric methane levels.