|
NEWSThings keep happening.
Lots to learn. |
9 Dec 2023-
End-of-year barbecue and bonfire, including ceremonial burning of clipped and dried biomass from Nico's moveable exclosures (ground tissue archived for future work - no worries!).
8 Dec 2023-
The final meeting of our 7-part "Listen to the Prairie" series was today; we concluded with a deep and interesting discussion on relationships and time.
4 Dec 2023-
The FFAR/Bayer collaborative project is officially real: Press Release! Our lab will support this project by measuring and interpreting soil microbial biodiversity in the context of soil health and crop productivity and sustainability.
16 Nov 2023-
pm: Nico successfully defended his MS thesis, "Bison and cattle grazing influences on soil microbial N cycling and ecosystem N pools in annually burned tallgrass prairies", with an excellent turnout and great questions from the audience.
16 Nov 2023-
am: Lydia spoke at the Kansas Governor's Water Conference on "Monitoring effects of bioremediation in a Kansas urban pond with a persistent toxic cyanobacterial bloom," also with very good audience interaction and discussion.
13-14 Oct 2023-
The ESA SEEDS program organized a field station visit to Konza Prairie, and we had a wonderful time getting to know the tallgrass prairie together!
11 Oct 2023-
Brett succesfully defended his MS thesis, "The spatiotemporal dynamics of bacterial and fungal abundance in Great Plains non-perennial streams", with a great show of support from family and external collaborators! Thanks all, what an exciting day!
24 Sept 2023-
Lydia returned from a refreshing writing retreat on Adak, Alaska.
24 Aug 2023-
Janaye and Lydia, and collaborators from University of Alaska Fairbanks and US Geological Survey, successfully completed another year of sample collection, monitoring the recovery of Kasatochi Island from the volcanic eruption. With Janaye's help, we also got plant biomass this year... which do we think will be more productive, E. Kansas tallgrass prairie or Aluetian Islands meadows? Thanks as always to the US Fish & Wildlife Service Alaska Maritime Wildlife Refuge for field logistics support.
14-17 Aug 2023-
Claire, Janaye, and Lydia had a nice week getting to know the McMurdo Dry Valleys LTER group better at the annual meeting in Boulder, CO -- what a supportive, collaborative, and communicative group; we are so pleased to have the opportunity to join this team!
6-10 Aug 2023-
ESA Annual Meeting in Portland, OR. Rob and Brett showed excellent work at their poster and talk, respectively; Nico was clearly missed, but Lydia pulled off giving his talk as well as her poster.
18-19 July 2023-
Despite airline conection issues, Lydia made it to the Watershed Dynamics and Evolution (WaDE) SFA kickoff team meeting in Oak Ridge, TN. What a solid group of scientists and exciting collaborative project! Can't wait to get deeper into the work.
26-30 June 2023-
The final synoptic sampling of the Aquatic Intermittency effects on Microbiomes in Streams (AIMS) project is complete... super fun fieldwork south of Pocatello, ID. Flatlanders represented well in the hills :)
12 June 2023-
Caroline, Jess, and Elsa begain fieldwork for the USDA-NRCS Soil Health & Microbial Biodiversity project! Hooray for a new field season and new projects.
2 June 2023-
The Konza Prairie LTER mid-term site review has concluded, with satisfactory results. That was an intense, but critically useful, experience, as always!
2 May 2023-
Lydia gave a seminar at KU EEB, that was a fun visit, and thanks so much to the graduate students for the invitation!
17 April 2023-
Cristy Reyes-Portales gave an excellent seminar, thanks for the visit Cristy and glad you've landed relatively nearby for the tenure-track position.
13 April 2023-
Matt successfully defended his PhD dissertation, "Ecosystem recovery from chronic fertilization: Biotic mechanisms underpinning soil nitrogen legacies in burned and unburned grasslands". Years of great work, Matt!!!
28 March 2023-
Kiona successfully defended her MS thesis, "Urban development impacts on soil health and function: A landscape architecture perspective from the Flint Hills Ecoregion." Kiona did an impessive job of synthesizing and applying soil health concepts to urban soils, congratulations, Kiona!
9-10 February 2023-
Nico, Kiona, and Lydia all spoke at the Kansas Natural Resources Conference on various aspects and applications of soil health. Super enjoyable to connect with people here, as always.
19 January 2023-
Lydia returned from Antarctica, back to school time... The trip was excellent, though too short...
23 December 2022-
Lydia departed the US for the McMurdo Dry Valleys, East Antarctica! This is her third visit and the first since <ahem> the 2004-2005 field season... Thanks so much to Diane McKnight for adding me to her Algae Ops team this year, the experience is essential for re-familiarization with working in this environment.
19-22 September 2022-
Matt and Lydia attended the LTER Network All-Scientists Meeting in California. These connections have provided a critical professional support network over the years, very nice to catch up with so many colleagues after the Covid lock-down period.
21 August 2022-
Kasatochi Island looks amazing after three years since the last visit! Lupine thickets abound on the northeast edge of the island.... are we entering a new phase of recovery? So grateful for the opportunity to return and continue this line of research, thank you USFWS AMNWR.
17 August 2022-
Lydia made a brief appearance at ESA 2022 in Montreal... a nice reminder of how much great research is happening out there.
16-20 May 2022-
Brett, Janaye, Brooke, and Lydia attended the Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting in Grand Rapids, MI... wonderful to see colleagues again after years to decades!
23 March 2022-
McMurdo Dry Valleys LTER renewal grant (round six) is submitted - that was a particularly fulfilling and draining team writing experience... still a bit stunned by the opportuinty to join the team! The proposal is solid, we hope for positive feedback!
13 July 2021-
Began sampling soils for a new USDA funded project on fire rotation (patch-burn grazing management) effects on rangeland soil and ecosystem health- hooray for new projects!
6-10 June 2021-
The Aquatic Intermittency effects on Microbiomes in Streams (AIMS) project kicked off with a coordinated synoptic sampling of the South Kings Creek watershed on the Konza Prairie... it was the first time that just about everbody had traveled for work since the pandemic began. We had a lot of fun and got a lot of work done, despite minor chaos, no problems, a lot of samples to work on now, and an excellent team-building experience! Whew!
2 Jan 2021-
Unlikely I'll have the energy to update the full past 1.25 years anytime soon... The biggest news items were getting tenure and an NSF-CAREER grant, both of which became official just about the same time the pandemic shut everything down in mid-March 2020, so... anticlimactic. I am very proud of the grant and even though it was not quite the kickoff season planned, manged to get some work done and very much looking forward to ramping up on that. The part of getting tenure that I'm most proud of is maintaining my sanity - sad but true - but it is a welcome step forward.
We all pushed through 2020 as well as we could. Jaide graduated in December, and she got the kind of job she wanted; technicians Justin and Kyle also picked up good jobs, these are wonderful goals reached! Matt passed his comps, Josh finished classes and is excited to focus on research, Nico gave a nice capstone on his REU work, and he and Brett are both very ready for graduate school. Alex and Kiona both stepped up even more than before and have been essential in keeping the lab running through 2020. Not saying it was a great year, but we came through OK.
25 Aug 2019- The annual Kasatochi Island post-volcanic eruption recovery monitoring went smoothly, with a nice weather day and all plant and soil long-term sites visited and sampled. Notable changes this year (if you go to the link, scroll to the end) include the clear replacement of the early vegetatively-recovering Leymus grasses with robust newly germinated Lupine plants, and visible fungal biomass and fruiting bodies on the large mass of decomposing grass litter. And... a Painted Lady butterfly!!!
22 Aug 2019- Talked with ranchers at the Kansas Grazing Lands Coalition's Tallgrass Range School: their theme this year is "Managing Outside of Normal". As usual with this type of audience, great practical questions, and I enjoyed the conversation. Also more positive reassurance that people are taking care of the prairie.
21 Aug 2019- Visited The Land Institute to talk about our lab's research. Super conversation about microbial community ecology and grassland biogeochemistry. So nice to have these folks as neighbors.
16 Aug 2019-
ESA 2019 in the books. That was fun, and Jaide and Matt had steady visitors at their first ever poster presentations!
31 July 2019-
Somehow, three grants went in this month? And all the students and field teams are busy collecting data on Konza and across the state. Busiest summer ever.
25 June 2019-
First 1-m deep soil cores extracted and processed for our DOE-TES project! Another great team of students and techs, Hannah the roving microbial student and Rachel and Emmett from the Nippert lab. Very exciting to get a glimpse below 20cm... it looks different down there. We'll learn how woody encroachment affects carbon turnover at depth.
17-21 June 2019-
Teacher's Training Workshop with KEEP (Konza Environmental Education Program) and NSF-EPSCoR Kansas MAPS. Really inspiring to be reminded how much these teachers care about how the students understand science. We talked about a lot, including "the soil is alive", dungscapes, water quality experiments, and Data Nuggets (Jaide did an especially great job with the latter!).
31 May 2019-
The first week of a very busy summer rounds out with the Konza LTER 2019 summer workshop. SO MUCH to think about!
23 May 2019-
SFS 2019 was great! I haven't been to this meeting for a few years and it was a fun reunion. Really nice to see Janaye's poster and all the other Kaw-RAPID and KS-EPSCoR presentations come together, the strong showing of Microbial Ecology in the regular session and Allison's special session, and the breadth and depth of the alpine stream and heterotrophy research consortia, among other things. Missed those who couldn't make it.
16 May 2019-
A quick turnaround after the LTER Science Council Meeting in lovely Puerto Rico. The Luqillo site is really impressive, the results of joint efforts by USDA FS, LTER and CZO to understand the ecosystem recovery post-hurricane are super interesting. LTER meetings are a bit more stressful than average for me, and it's awkward being the youngest one in this distinguished assemblage, but it's still very reassuring to connect with the forward-thinking folks in this group.
15 May 2019-
CC's second MS thesis chapter, "Soil fungal community changes in response to long-term fire cessation and N fertilization in tallgrass prairie", is out in Fungal Ecology! Do soil microbial responses to fire cessation mirror the aboveground plant turnover? Not exactly. There’s more there than meets the eye…
26-27 April 2019-
Set up the Konza "Ghost-Fire" experiment for a shocking (because the time has passed so quickly) fifth year! High winds foiled our first attempt at litter addition, but Kyle and Matt managed to get it done.
4 April 2019-
Snuck out to help burn some watersheds at Konza Prairie Biological Station this afternoon. It's harder and harder to find blocks of time to join the volunteer crew, but such an important reminder to appreciate the effort it takes, and the essential role that we all have in maintaining the prairie.
2 April 2019-
What I thought would be a presentation to the Konza Environmental Education Program docents, on (Wild) Microbes of the Prairie, turned out to have attracted a broader audience of local land managers. These folks had great questions, and I'm thoroughly gratified about the engaging conversation that we had!
29 March 2019-
Deb Finn's seminar and visit was super fun! It's been such a wet spring so far, all the tiny ephemeral streams on Konza Prairie are running, choked full of algae since it's too early for significant plant inputs or shading. We found mature stoneflies below one permanent seep! New local exploration for me, and rewarding to do so with a good collaborator and friend.
18 March 2019-
Kansas EPSCoR MAPS Symposium. A nice review of all ongoing activities on the large grant, including outreach. Interesting plenary talk by Ed Gallindo, and informative presentation by Jay Johnson and Cody Marshall on the history and mission of Haskell Indian Nations University.
15 March 2019-
This paper in Freshwater Science on watershed-scale controls over arid-land stream microbial diversity was a long time coming, it's great to see it in print! Here's my blurb:
The importance of archiving DNA for future research! We learned something unexpected: Watershed hydrology and salinity, but not nutrient chemistry, are associated with arid-land stream microbial diversity... In my dissertation, I used DGGE to address the research question, but those results were low-resolution. And most problematic, it was not possible to make reliable comparisons of genotypes shared among sites. But collecting more robust information was beyond our scope then... Only 10 years later, amplicon sequencing is dramatically better and more accessible. (Only? I know. But now 60 samples, nbd!) Thanks to Tina Vesbach at UNM for keeping this DNA archived in her own -80 freezer until I had the capacity to come back to it, and learn something new!
3 March 2019-
Robin and Lucas have an intriguing frog model development system, and I'm pleased to be able to contribute information on how gut microbiome composition mediates developmental physiology and ranavirus susceptibility! The most recent publication is now online in Journal of Animal Ecology.
22 Feb 2019-
Lots of abstracts submitted this week! Janaye, Matt, Jaide, myself, and a surprising number of collaborative presentations at SFS and ESA this year... wish we could attend every meeting but alas, no can do. Need to save some time for the research.
19 Jan 2019-
Konza LTER Workshop. Starting to discuss KNZ VIII! Pretty exciting.
10 Dec 2018-
Amy's taking our RAPID project to AGU! Just a year after this event (fertilizer waste disposal into the river) was announced, and we've learned a whole lot about the consequences.
16 Nov 2018-
Kansas EPSCoR (Microbiomes of Aquatic, Plant and Soil habitats) science meeting. Pretty impressed with what the group has managed to get done in year 1, and with the group's maintained goal of integration.
14 Nov 2018-
Kansas Governor's Water Conference. My first tag-team presentation ever, with Dr. Burgin, and it went well, and for a packed room. Kansas land managers and legislators at this meeting seem primarily concerned about aquifer depletion (good to hear!) but are also worried about surface water quality. Surprisingly heartening meeting overall, especially on the heels of welcome election results.
November 2018-
These couple months have been all about Ecologist job searches. SO thrilled to have the chance to bring in new colleagues!
6 Oct 2018-
Great Plains Limnology Meeting at the University of Kansas Biological Station! Just can't get enough science this week! Totally impressed by the caliber of presentations; looking forward to living up to it again next year.
3 Oct 2018-
LTER All-Scientists Meeting final day. Great meeting for students and PIs alike. The breadth of plenary talks and the meeting of new and old perspectives was very enlightening. Had a wonderfully engaged group at the microbial ecology workshop. Went to the beach. Great meeting, as usual; did I say that already?
15 Sept 2018-
Biology 890 Microbial Diversity graduate class 2018: we're doing it again! Sampling for sequencing soil across Konza Prairie Biological Station. This has been a very dry summer... how will the microbes respond?
25 Aug 2018-
Most efficient Kasatochi Island sampling visit yet! Will the lupines meet the Leymus soon?... C and N inputs together could bring soil organic matter recovery to the next level! The reference site, Adak Island, is as lovely as ever.
21 Aug 2018-
First day of class followed by a quick trip to the Aleutian Islands - glad my graduate student course includes ten responsible folks who are surely reading all the semester's papers while I'm in the field!
10 Aug 2018-
ESA was a whirlwind as usual! Great to catch up with folks and to participate as a Soil Ecology Section representative.
30 July 2018-
2018 Teton Alpine Stream Research sampling has begun! We are documenting the unique whole-stream biodiversity in these super-cold glacier-fed, rock glacier-fed and snowmelt streams, including bacteria, diatoms, and of course the macroinvertebrates that eat the delicious biofilms. Exciting research, but sad to consider what will happen as the surface glaciers disappear. Ask me what a rock glacier is sometime, they are likely important refugia.
26 July 2018-
Dr. Kirsten Grond's review of wild bird gut microbiome dynamics is accepted at Journal of Avian Biology! It was really interesting to discuss the literature with her and synopsize the growing body of research in this area.
12 July 2018-
Final day of KS-ESPCoR "MAPS" Aquatic field sampling for eastern KS in 2018. Janaye and Mitchell have been busy grabbing water and benthos samples from high to low order streams in watersheds with contrasting land-use coverage - now time to beat the heat with some lab work.
11 July 2018-
Matt Kirk et al. receive NSF funding: Biogeochemical drivers of interspecies electron transfer from iron reducers to methanogens! Happy to support some super cool geomicrobiology that elucidates roles of functional groups of microbes under variable environmental conditions.
20 June 2018-
Jesse Nippert et al. receive DOE funding: Using Root and Soil Traits to Forecast Woody Encroachment Dynamics in Mesic Grassland. Can't wait to get started next year - we are looking for students now, one root-focused (Nippert Lab) and one soil-focused (Zeglin Lab)! Deadline is 15 December for Fall 2019 admission... more on that soonish.
14 June 2018-
Meta-pictures of our lab being filmed for a video short about women in STEM. We don't usually sample soil on campus, but it'll do!
8 June 2018-
Burgin/Dodds/Zeglin Labs joint float trip & BBQ - super fun despite the heat, with a great team of people!
29 May 2018-
Konza LTER All-Hands Meeting 2018. Nice to have some stimulating conversations!
18 May 2018-
Don't know where the end of the spring went, well I guess I do. Done enough grading for a while!
Today, couldn't stand the old website anymore. This is SO much better!
Kind of bummed to miss SFS. Will definitely be there next year!!
23 April 2018-
First Belowground Plots soil sampling of the season! It's been cool and dry, not expecting much activity yet.
30-31 March 2018-
Last day of Kaw River sampling during the fertilizer plant waste inputs! The group used this time in impressive fashion, with a 24-hour sampling effort. Now, time to start extracting some DNA, RNA, producing & analyzing some data!
21 March 2018-
"Long-term fire management history affects N-fertilization sensitivity, but not seasonality, of grassland soil microbial communities" accepted in Soil Biology & Biochemistry. CC's hard work sure was worthwhile!
12 March 2018 -
Reciprocal inoculation experiments: Fertilizer plant effluent vs. Kansas River water nitrification and denitrification potential rates at different N availability levels. The race is on! (pics 1, 2, 3)
8 March 2018-
"Vertical changes of soil microbial properties in claypan soils" accepted in Soil Biology & Biochemistry. Way to go, Jerry!
1 March 2018 -
With support from the NSF-DEB-Ecosystem Science RAPID program, we can really learn something here! Specifically, could the inoculation of the Kansas River with a high-N enriched microbial community affect the N-processing capacity of the ecosystem?
1 February 2018 -
The field season begins early this year... The Burgin Lab and Zeglin Lab are tracking the biogeochemical and microbiological impact of the unanticipated release of fertilizer production waste into the Kansas River.
12 January 2018 -
Science planning meeting, for the new Kansas EPSCOR Microbiomes of Aquatic, Plants and Soils (MAPS) RII Track-1 project, at the Kansas University Biological Station near Lawrence. A supportive team has gathered here, full of excitement to learn more about how Kansas microbes respond to precipitation and land-use change!
... WELCOME 2018! Moving forward, not going back.
9 Nov 2017 -
Priscilla presented her new data on "Impacts of prairie land management on nitrous oxide production" at the KSU Research and the State Forum. Should our state legislators learn about rangeland greenhouse gas emission? Good question.
30 Oct 2017 -
Scouting trip for aquatic sites in Western Kansas with Dr. Burgin and Dr. Sullivan from KU and Dr. Mehl from the Nature Conservancy. Reminiscent of my PhD work in New Mexico, classic intermittent streams in a semi-arid landscape: The Smoky Hill River near Oakley and near Cedar Bluff Reservoir.
27 Oct 2017 -
Great to visit University of Illinois-Champaign NRES, connect with colleagues, share some new research findings, interact with some promising students, and learn about a new place.
14 Oct 2017 -
Great Plains Limnology Meeting in Columbia, MO: Wonderful to connect and reconnect with local aquatic ecologists, and to be reminded of the importance of water quality in the Midwest US to global environmental health! Janaye did a great job presenting her first poster, discussing how biofilm enzyme activities indicate water quality.
5 Oct 2017 -
Priscilla won "best slides" for her presentation on her graduate research at our EEB Graduate Students on Parade event! Way to go!
4 Oct 2017 -
A new NSF-EPSCoR Track 1 award will support research on microbiomes in aquatic, plant and soil habitats across the state of Kansas - Our "MAPS" project begins...
23 Sept 2017-
Priscilla collected her last soil sampling for nitrification/denitrifcation potentials and nitrifier/denitrifier diversity measurement! A solid season of fieldwork is complete.
30 Aug 2017 -
Kasatochi fieldwork success for another year. It's the 9th year post-volcanic eruption: even here, there is life (pics 1, 2).
7-10 Aug 2017 -
ESA was great, a lot of really exciting research across a breadth of scales. Priscilla presented her first poster (thanks for sharing)!
26 July 2017 -
A productive collaboration: Robin's frog development model shows that gut microbiome structure and developmental trajectory is affected by egg inoculum (Integrative and Comparative Biology).
24 July 2017 -
CC defended her Master's Thesis, and of course did a great job! Those 2 years sure went fast, I learned a lot too, incuding that I should take more pictures with my students! Research highlights: cessation of burning increases sensitivity of soil prokaryotes to N addition; soil fungal communities under woody-encroached prairie still resemble prairie, not forest; seasonal community turnover of native prairie soil microbial communities is undetectable at our site.
11 July 2017 -
Talked to a group of restoration managers from across the Great Plains; really interesting to think about the prairie from different perspectives, thanks Grassland Restoration Network.
1 July 2017 -
Here is a unique new book on an understudied portion of many landscapes: Intermittent and Ephemeral Streams - including a chapter on microbial diversity.
19 May 2017 -
New bison calves on the prairie and a new behavioral observation (new to me): cows defending the young calves in a protective circle. Normally these animals are totally unconcerned when a vehicle stops along the access road.
14 April 2017 -
The graduate students like me; I think it's because they know I like them too. (Received the 2017 Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award from the KSU Biology Graduate Student Association.)
13 April 2017 -
Janaye was awarded a scholarship from the College of Arts & Sciences for her own summer research project on stream biofilm function in streams with contrasting water quality (pic).
25 April 2017 -
Erica Jacquay defended her Master's Thesis in Animal Sciences: Foal gut microbiome develops quickly from birth to resemble the parental mare microbiome, but is not affected by the stress of weaning.
13 March 2017 -
The Wichita State Department of Biological Sciences is a smart and friendly group! Nice to meet more Kansans.
28 Feb 2017 -
Another LTER network-level synthesis, now published in Global Change Biology: Stream leaf litter decomposition will increase with temperature, but less sensitively than predicted by metabolic theory.
24-26 Feb 2017 -
KNZ LTER site synthesis meeting: Boy, do we have a lot of data, that we can still learn from. The more, the merrier!
16 Nov 2016 -
CC's Science on Tap was packed and fun! Of course, how could soil biodiversity not be fun, especially with CC's soil aggregate model!
11 Oct 2016 -
International LTER Open Science Meeting: A pleasure to participate and interact with ecologists from around the globe
16 Sept 2016 -
Biology 890 Microbial Diversity - a fun day sampling across Konza Prairie for our student-driven research project (pics 1, 2)
27 Aug 2016 -
Great field help and amazing weather makes for a record setting Kasatochi (& Koniuji!) expedition (pics 1, 2, 3)
9 Aug 2016 -
Special session at ESA on Microbial Ecology at the Terrestrial-Aquatic Interface highlighted lots of exciting research
2 Aug 2016 -
Shared water use in an arid-land watershed promotes nutrient retention, reduces downstream pollution (Environmental Science & Technology)
29 July 2016 -
Successful and spectacular glacial-fed stream invertebrate, diatom and microbiome sampling, part of a collaborative 2016 UW-NPS biodiversity study in the Grand Teton National Park
3 June 2016 -
CC received a Missouri Mycological Society scholarship AND a Science Communication Fellowship at the Sunset Zoo
7 May 2016 -
KSU Division of Biology Most Promising Students: including Victoria (pic)
5 March 2016 -
Victoria's first poster at the Missouri Valley American Society for Microbiology meeting (pic)
1 Jan 2016 -
Happy New Year! Early bacterial community assembly post-disturbance is related to organic matter, not pH (Environmental Microbiology)
3 Nov 2015 -
Collaborative K-State geomicrobiology publication in press at Frontiers in Microbiology: Niche differentiation of methanogens in coalbeds
10 Sept 2015 -
A little local Alaskan research highlight: Adak, AK Eagle's Call (p. 3)
1 Sept 2015 -
A well organized and engaged group at the LTER All-Scientists Meeting Microbial Ecology workshop
End-of-year barbecue and bonfire, including ceremonial burning of clipped and dried biomass from Nico's moveable exclosures (ground tissue archived for future work - no worries!).
8 Dec 2023-
The final meeting of our 7-part "Listen to the Prairie" series was today; we concluded with a deep and interesting discussion on relationships and time.
4 Dec 2023-
The FFAR/Bayer collaborative project is officially real: Press Release! Our lab will support this project by measuring and interpreting soil microbial biodiversity in the context of soil health and crop productivity and sustainability.
16 Nov 2023-
pm: Nico successfully defended his MS thesis, "Bison and cattle grazing influences on soil microbial N cycling and ecosystem N pools in annually burned tallgrass prairies", with an excellent turnout and great questions from the audience.
16 Nov 2023-
am: Lydia spoke at the Kansas Governor's Water Conference on "Monitoring effects of bioremediation in a Kansas urban pond with a persistent toxic cyanobacterial bloom," also with very good audience interaction and discussion.
13-14 Oct 2023-
The ESA SEEDS program organized a field station visit to Konza Prairie, and we had a wonderful time getting to know the tallgrass prairie together!
11 Oct 2023-
Brett succesfully defended his MS thesis, "The spatiotemporal dynamics of bacterial and fungal abundance in Great Plains non-perennial streams", with a great show of support from family and external collaborators! Thanks all, what an exciting day!
24 Sept 2023-
Lydia returned from a refreshing writing retreat on Adak, Alaska.
24 Aug 2023-
Janaye and Lydia, and collaborators from University of Alaska Fairbanks and US Geological Survey, successfully completed another year of sample collection, monitoring the recovery of Kasatochi Island from the volcanic eruption. With Janaye's help, we also got plant biomass this year... which do we think will be more productive, E. Kansas tallgrass prairie or Aluetian Islands meadows? Thanks as always to the US Fish & Wildlife Service Alaska Maritime Wildlife Refuge for field logistics support.
14-17 Aug 2023-
Claire, Janaye, and Lydia had a nice week getting to know the McMurdo Dry Valleys LTER group better at the annual meeting in Boulder, CO -- what a supportive, collaborative, and communicative group; we are so pleased to have the opportunity to join this team!
6-10 Aug 2023-
ESA Annual Meeting in Portland, OR. Rob and Brett showed excellent work at their poster and talk, respectively; Nico was clearly missed, but Lydia pulled off giving his talk as well as her poster.
18-19 July 2023-
Despite airline conection issues, Lydia made it to the Watershed Dynamics and Evolution (WaDE) SFA kickoff team meeting in Oak Ridge, TN. What a solid group of scientists and exciting collaborative project! Can't wait to get deeper into the work.
26-30 June 2023-
The final synoptic sampling of the Aquatic Intermittency effects on Microbiomes in Streams (AIMS) project is complete... super fun fieldwork south of Pocatello, ID. Flatlanders represented well in the hills :)
12 June 2023-
Caroline, Jess, and Elsa begain fieldwork for the USDA-NRCS Soil Health & Microbial Biodiversity project! Hooray for a new field season and new projects.
2 June 2023-
The Konza Prairie LTER mid-term site review has concluded, with satisfactory results. That was an intense, but critically useful, experience, as always!
2 May 2023-
Lydia gave a seminar at KU EEB, that was a fun visit, and thanks so much to the graduate students for the invitation!
17 April 2023-
Cristy Reyes-Portales gave an excellent seminar, thanks for the visit Cristy and glad you've landed relatively nearby for the tenure-track position.
13 April 2023-
Matt successfully defended his PhD dissertation, "Ecosystem recovery from chronic fertilization: Biotic mechanisms underpinning soil nitrogen legacies in burned and unburned grasslands". Years of great work, Matt!!!
28 March 2023-
Kiona successfully defended her MS thesis, "Urban development impacts on soil health and function: A landscape architecture perspective from the Flint Hills Ecoregion." Kiona did an impessive job of synthesizing and applying soil health concepts to urban soils, congratulations, Kiona!
9-10 February 2023-
Nico, Kiona, and Lydia all spoke at the Kansas Natural Resources Conference on various aspects and applications of soil health. Super enjoyable to connect with people here, as always.
19 January 2023-
Lydia returned from Antarctica, back to school time... The trip was excellent, though too short...
23 December 2022-
Lydia departed the US for the McMurdo Dry Valleys, East Antarctica! This is her third visit and the first since <ahem> the 2004-2005 field season... Thanks so much to Diane McKnight for adding me to her Algae Ops team this year, the experience is essential for re-familiarization with working in this environment.
19-22 September 2022-
Matt and Lydia attended the LTER Network All-Scientists Meeting in California. These connections have provided a critical professional support network over the years, very nice to catch up with so many colleagues after the Covid lock-down period.
21 August 2022-
Kasatochi Island looks amazing after three years since the last visit! Lupine thickets abound on the northeast edge of the island.... are we entering a new phase of recovery? So grateful for the opportunity to return and continue this line of research, thank you USFWS AMNWR.
17 August 2022-
Lydia made a brief appearance at ESA 2022 in Montreal... a nice reminder of how much great research is happening out there.
16-20 May 2022-
Brett, Janaye, Brooke, and Lydia attended the Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting in Grand Rapids, MI... wonderful to see colleagues again after years to decades!
23 March 2022-
McMurdo Dry Valleys LTER renewal grant (round six) is submitted - that was a particularly fulfilling and draining team writing experience... still a bit stunned by the opportuinty to join the team! The proposal is solid, we hope for positive feedback!
13 July 2021-
Began sampling soils for a new USDA funded project on fire rotation (patch-burn grazing management) effects on rangeland soil and ecosystem health- hooray for new projects!
6-10 June 2021-
The Aquatic Intermittency effects on Microbiomes in Streams (AIMS) project kicked off with a coordinated synoptic sampling of the South Kings Creek watershed on the Konza Prairie... it was the first time that just about everbody had traveled for work since the pandemic began. We had a lot of fun and got a lot of work done, despite minor chaos, no problems, a lot of samples to work on now, and an excellent team-building experience! Whew!
2 Jan 2021-
Unlikely I'll have the energy to update the full past 1.25 years anytime soon... The biggest news items were getting tenure and an NSF-CAREER grant, both of which became official just about the same time the pandemic shut everything down in mid-March 2020, so... anticlimactic. I am very proud of the grant and even though it was not quite the kickoff season planned, manged to get some work done and very much looking forward to ramping up on that. The part of getting tenure that I'm most proud of is maintaining my sanity - sad but true - but it is a welcome step forward.
We all pushed through 2020 as well as we could. Jaide graduated in December, and she got the kind of job she wanted; technicians Justin and Kyle also picked up good jobs, these are wonderful goals reached! Matt passed his comps, Josh finished classes and is excited to focus on research, Nico gave a nice capstone on his REU work, and he and Brett are both very ready for graduate school. Alex and Kiona both stepped up even more than before and have been essential in keeping the lab running through 2020. Not saying it was a great year, but we came through OK.
25 Aug 2019- The annual Kasatochi Island post-volcanic eruption recovery monitoring went smoothly, with a nice weather day and all plant and soil long-term sites visited and sampled. Notable changes this year (if you go to the link, scroll to the end) include the clear replacement of the early vegetatively-recovering Leymus grasses with robust newly germinated Lupine plants, and visible fungal biomass and fruiting bodies on the large mass of decomposing grass litter. And... a Painted Lady butterfly!!!
22 Aug 2019- Talked with ranchers at the Kansas Grazing Lands Coalition's Tallgrass Range School: their theme this year is "Managing Outside of Normal". As usual with this type of audience, great practical questions, and I enjoyed the conversation. Also more positive reassurance that people are taking care of the prairie.
21 Aug 2019- Visited The Land Institute to talk about our lab's research. Super conversation about microbial community ecology and grassland biogeochemistry. So nice to have these folks as neighbors.
16 Aug 2019-
ESA 2019 in the books. That was fun, and Jaide and Matt had steady visitors at their first ever poster presentations!
31 July 2019-
Somehow, three grants went in this month? And all the students and field teams are busy collecting data on Konza and across the state. Busiest summer ever.
25 June 2019-
First 1-m deep soil cores extracted and processed for our DOE-TES project! Another great team of students and techs, Hannah the roving microbial student and Rachel and Emmett from the Nippert lab. Very exciting to get a glimpse below 20cm... it looks different down there. We'll learn how woody encroachment affects carbon turnover at depth.
17-21 June 2019-
Teacher's Training Workshop with KEEP (Konza Environmental Education Program) and NSF-EPSCoR Kansas MAPS. Really inspiring to be reminded how much these teachers care about how the students understand science. We talked about a lot, including "the soil is alive", dungscapes, water quality experiments, and Data Nuggets (Jaide did an especially great job with the latter!).
31 May 2019-
The first week of a very busy summer rounds out with the Konza LTER 2019 summer workshop. SO MUCH to think about!
23 May 2019-
SFS 2019 was great! I haven't been to this meeting for a few years and it was a fun reunion. Really nice to see Janaye's poster and all the other Kaw-RAPID and KS-EPSCoR presentations come together, the strong showing of Microbial Ecology in the regular session and Allison's special session, and the breadth and depth of the alpine stream and heterotrophy research consortia, among other things. Missed those who couldn't make it.
16 May 2019-
A quick turnaround after the LTER Science Council Meeting in lovely Puerto Rico. The Luqillo site is really impressive, the results of joint efforts by USDA FS, LTER and CZO to understand the ecosystem recovery post-hurricane are super interesting. LTER meetings are a bit more stressful than average for me, and it's awkward being the youngest one in this distinguished assemblage, but it's still very reassuring to connect with the forward-thinking folks in this group.
15 May 2019-
CC's second MS thesis chapter, "Soil fungal community changes in response to long-term fire cessation and N fertilization in tallgrass prairie", is out in Fungal Ecology! Do soil microbial responses to fire cessation mirror the aboveground plant turnover? Not exactly. There’s more there than meets the eye…
26-27 April 2019-
Set up the Konza "Ghost-Fire" experiment for a shocking (because the time has passed so quickly) fifth year! High winds foiled our first attempt at litter addition, but Kyle and Matt managed to get it done.
4 April 2019-
Snuck out to help burn some watersheds at Konza Prairie Biological Station this afternoon. It's harder and harder to find blocks of time to join the volunteer crew, but such an important reminder to appreciate the effort it takes, and the essential role that we all have in maintaining the prairie.
2 April 2019-
What I thought would be a presentation to the Konza Environmental Education Program docents, on (Wild) Microbes of the Prairie, turned out to have attracted a broader audience of local land managers. These folks had great questions, and I'm thoroughly gratified about the engaging conversation that we had!
29 March 2019-
Deb Finn's seminar and visit was super fun! It's been such a wet spring so far, all the tiny ephemeral streams on Konza Prairie are running, choked full of algae since it's too early for significant plant inputs or shading. We found mature stoneflies below one permanent seep! New local exploration for me, and rewarding to do so with a good collaborator and friend.
18 March 2019-
Kansas EPSCoR MAPS Symposium. A nice review of all ongoing activities on the large grant, including outreach. Interesting plenary talk by Ed Gallindo, and informative presentation by Jay Johnson and Cody Marshall on the history and mission of Haskell Indian Nations University.
15 March 2019-
This paper in Freshwater Science on watershed-scale controls over arid-land stream microbial diversity was a long time coming, it's great to see it in print! Here's my blurb:
The importance of archiving DNA for future research! We learned something unexpected: Watershed hydrology and salinity, but not nutrient chemistry, are associated with arid-land stream microbial diversity... In my dissertation, I used DGGE to address the research question, but those results were low-resolution. And most problematic, it was not possible to make reliable comparisons of genotypes shared among sites. But collecting more robust information was beyond our scope then... Only 10 years later, amplicon sequencing is dramatically better and more accessible. (Only? I know. But now 60 samples, nbd!) Thanks to Tina Vesbach at UNM for keeping this DNA archived in her own -80 freezer until I had the capacity to come back to it, and learn something new!
3 March 2019-
Robin and Lucas have an intriguing frog model development system, and I'm pleased to be able to contribute information on how gut microbiome composition mediates developmental physiology and ranavirus susceptibility! The most recent publication is now online in Journal of Animal Ecology.
22 Feb 2019-
Lots of abstracts submitted this week! Janaye, Matt, Jaide, myself, and a surprising number of collaborative presentations at SFS and ESA this year... wish we could attend every meeting but alas, no can do. Need to save some time for the research.
19 Jan 2019-
Konza LTER Workshop. Starting to discuss KNZ VIII! Pretty exciting.
10 Dec 2018-
Amy's taking our RAPID project to AGU! Just a year after this event (fertilizer waste disposal into the river) was announced, and we've learned a whole lot about the consequences.
16 Nov 2018-
Kansas EPSCoR (Microbiomes of Aquatic, Plant and Soil habitats) science meeting. Pretty impressed with what the group has managed to get done in year 1, and with the group's maintained goal of integration.
14 Nov 2018-
Kansas Governor's Water Conference. My first tag-team presentation ever, with Dr. Burgin, and it went well, and for a packed room. Kansas land managers and legislators at this meeting seem primarily concerned about aquifer depletion (good to hear!) but are also worried about surface water quality. Surprisingly heartening meeting overall, especially on the heels of welcome election results.
November 2018-
These couple months have been all about Ecologist job searches. SO thrilled to have the chance to bring in new colleagues!
6 Oct 2018-
Great Plains Limnology Meeting at the University of Kansas Biological Station! Just can't get enough science this week! Totally impressed by the caliber of presentations; looking forward to living up to it again next year.
3 Oct 2018-
LTER All-Scientists Meeting final day. Great meeting for students and PIs alike. The breadth of plenary talks and the meeting of new and old perspectives was very enlightening. Had a wonderfully engaged group at the microbial ecology workshop. Went to the beach. Great meeting, as usual; did I say that already?
15 Sept 2018-
Biology 890 Microbial Diversity graduate class 2018: we're doing it again! Sampling for sequencing soil across Konza Prairie Biological Station. This has been a very dry summer... how will the microbes respond?
25 Aug 2018-
Most efficient Kasatochi Island sampling visit yet! Will the lupines meet the Leymus soon?... C and N inputs together could bring soil organic matter recovery to the next level! The reference site, Adak Island, is as lovely as ever.
21 Aug 2018-
First day of class followed by a quick trip to the Aleutian Islands - glad my graduate student course includes ten responsible folks who are surely reading all the semester's papers while I'm in the field!
10 Aug 2018-
ESA was a whirlwind as usual! Great to catch up with folks and to participate as a Soil Ecology Section representative.
30 July 2018-
2018 Teton Alpine Stream Research sampling has begun! We are documenting the unique whole-stream biodiversity in these super-cold glacier-fed, rock glacier-fed and snowmelt streams, including bacteria, diatoms, and of course the macroinvertebrates that eat the delicious biofilms. Exciting research, but sad to consider what will happen as the surface glaciers disappear. Ask me what a rock glacier is sometime, they are likely important refugia.
26 July 2018-
Dr. Kirsten Grond's review of wild bird gut microbiome dynamics is accepted at Journal of Avian Biology! It was really interesting to discuss the literature with her and synopsize the growing body of research in this area.
12 July 2018-
Final day of KS-ESPCoR "MAPS" Aquatic field sampling for eastern KS in 2018. Janaye and Mitchell have been busy grabbing water and benthos samples from high to low order streams in watersheds with contrasting land-use coverage - now time to beat the heat with some lab work.
11 July 2018-
Matt Kirk et al. receive NSF funding: Biogeochemical drivers of interspecies electron transfer from iron reducers to methanogens! Happy to support some super cool geomicrobiology that elucidates roles of functional groups of microbes under variable environmental conditions.
20 June 2018-
Jesse Nippert et al. receive DOE funding: Using Root and Soil Traits to Forecast Woody Encroachment Dynamics in Mesic Grassland. Can't wait to get started next year - we are looking for students now, one root-focused (Nippert Lab) and one soil-focused (Zeglin Lab)! Deadline is 15 December for Fall 2019 admission... more on that soonish.
14 June 2018-
Meta-pictures of our lab being filmed for a video short about women in STEM. We don't usually sample soil on campus, but it'll do!
8 June 2018-
Burgin/Dodds/Zeglin Labs joint float trip & BBQ - super fun despite the heat, with a great team of people!
29 May 2018-
Konza LTER All-Hands Meeting 2018. Nice to have some stimulating conversations!
18 May 2018-
Don't know where the end of the spring went, well I guess I do. Done enough grading for a while!
Today, couldn't stand the old website anymore. This is SO much better!
Kind of bummed to miss SFS. Will definitely be there next year!!
23 April 2018-
First Belowground Plots soil sampling of the season! It's been cool and dry, not expecting much activity yet.
30-31 March 2018-
Last day of Kaw River sampling during the fertilizer plant waste inputs! The group used this time in impressive fashion, with a 24-hour sampling effort. Now, time to start extracting some DNA, RNA, producing & analyzing some data!
21 March 2018-
"Long-term fire management history affects N-fertilization sensitivity, but not seasonality, of grassland soil microbial communities" accepted in Soil Biology & Biochemistry. CC's hard work sure was worthwhile!
12 March 2018 -
Reciprocal inoculation experiments: Fertilizer plant effluent vs. Kansas River water nitrification and denitrification potential rates at different N availability levels. The race is on! (pics 1, 2, 3)
8 March 2018-
"Vertical changes of soil microbial properties in claypan soils" accepted in Soil Biology & Biochemistry. Way to go, Jerry!
1 March 2018 -
With support from the NSF-DEB-Ecosystem Science RAPID program, we can really learn something here! Specifically, could the inoculation of the Kansas River with a high-N enriched microbial community affect the N-processing capacity of the ecosystem?
1 February 2018 -
The field season begins early this year... The Burgin Lab and Zeglin Lab are tracking the biogeochemical and microbiological impact of the unanticipated release of fertilizer production waste into the Kansas River.
12 January 2018 -
Science planning meeting, for the new Kansas EPSCOR Microbiomes of Aquatic, Plants and Soils (MAPS) RII Track-1 project, at the Kansas University Biological Station near Lawrence. A supportive team has gathered here, full of excitement to learn more about how Kansas microbes respond to precipitation and land-use change!
... WELCOME 2018! Moving forward, not going back.
9 Nov 2017 -
Priscilla presented her new data on "Impacts of prairie land management on nitrous oxide production" at the KSU Research and the State Forum. Should our state legislators learn about rangeland greenhouse gas emission? Good question.
30 Oct 2017 -
Scouting trip for aquatic sites in Western Kansas with Dr. Burgin and Dr. Sullivan from KU and Dr. Mehl from the Nature Conservancy. Reminiscent of my PhD work in New Mexico, classic intermittent streams in a semi-arid landscape: The Smoky Hill River near Oakley and near Cedar Bluff Reservoir.
27 Oct 2017 -
Great to visit University of Illinois-Champaign NRES, connect with colleagues, share some new research findings, interact with some promising students, and learn about a new place.
14 Oct 2017 -
Great Plains Limnology Meeting in Columbia, MO: Wonderful to connect and reconnect with local aquatic ecologists, and to be reminded of the importance of water quality in the Midwest US to global environmental health! Janaye did a great job presenting her first poster, discussing how biofilm enzyme activities indicate water quality.
5 Oct 2017 -
Priscilla won "best slides" for her presentation on her graduate research at our EEB Graduate Students on Parade event! Way to go!
4 Oct 2017 -
A new NSF-EPSCoR Track 1 award will support research on microbiomes in aquatic, plant and soil habitats across the state of Kansas - Our "MAPS" project begins...
23 Sept 2017-
Priscilla collected her last soil sampling for nitrification/denitrifcation potentials and nitrifier/denitrifier diversity measurement! A solid season of fieldwork is complete.
30 Aug 2017 -
Kasatochi fieldwork success for another year. It's the 9th year post-volcanic eruption: even here, there is life (pics 1, 2).
7-10 Aug 2017 -
ESA was great, a lot of really exciting research across a breadth of scales. Priscilla presented her first poster (thanks for sharing)!
26 July 2017 -
A productive collaboration: Robin's frog development model shows that gut microbiome structure and developmental trajectory is affected by egg inoculum (Integrative and Comparative Biology).
24 July 2017 -
CC defended her Master's Thesis, and of course did a great job! Those 2 years sure went fast, I learned a lot too, incuding that I should take more pictures with my students! Research highlights: cessation of burning increases sensitivity of soil prokaryotes to N addition; soil fungal communities under woody-encroached prairie still resemble prairie, not forest; seasonal community turnover of native prairie soil microbial communities is undetectable at our site.
11 July 2017 -
Talked to a group of restoration managers from across the Great Plains; really interesting to think about the prairie from different perspectives, thanks Grassland Restoration Network.
1 July 2017 -
Here is a unique new book on an understudied portion of many landscapes: Intermittent and Ephemeral Streams - including a chapter on microbial diversity.
19 May 2017 -
New bison calves on the prairie and a new behavioral observation (new to me): cows defending the young calves in a protective circle. Normally these animals are totally unconcerned when a vehicle stops along the access road.
14 April 2017 -
The graduate students like me; I think it's because they know I like them too. (Received the 2017 Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award from the KSU Biology Graduate Student Association.)
13 April 2017 -
Janaye was awarded a scholarship from the College of Arts & Sciences for her own summer research project on stream biofilm function in streams with contrasting water quality (pic).
25 April 2017 -
Erica Jacquay defended her Master's Thesis in Animal Sciences: Foal gut microbiome develops quickly from birth to resemble the parental mare microbiome, but is not affected by the stress of weaning.
13 March 2017 -
The Wichita State Department of Biological Sciences is a smart and friendly group! Nice to meet more Kansans.
28 Feb 2017 -
Another LTER network-level synthesis, now published in Global Change Biology: Stream leaf litter decomposition will increase with temperature, but less sensitively than predicted by metabolic theory.
24-26 Feb 2017 -
KNZ LTER site synthesis meeting: Boy, do we have a lot of data, that we can still learn from. The more, the merrier!
16 Nov 2016 -
CC's Science on Tap was packed and fun! Of course, how could soil biodiversity not be fun, especially with CC's soil aggregate model!
11 Oct 2016 -
International LTER Open Science Meeting: A pleasure to participate and interact with ecologists from around the globe
16 Sept 2016 -
Biology 890 Microbial Diversity - a fun day sampling across Konza Prairie for our student-driven research project (pics 1, 2)
27 Aug 2016 -
Great field help and amazing weather makes for a record setting Kasatochi (& Koniuji!) expedition (pics 1, 2, 3)
9 Aug 2016 -
Special session at ESA on Microbial Ecology at the Terrestrial-Aquatic Interface highlighted lots of exciting research
2 Aug 2016 -
Shared water use in an arid-land watershed promotes nutrient retention, reduces downstream pollution (Environmental Science & Technology)
29 July 2016 -
Successful and spectacular glacial-fed stream invertebrate, diatom and microbiome sampling, part of a collaborative 2016 UW-NPS biodiversity study in the Grand Teton National Park
3 June 2016 -
CC received a Missouri Mycological Society scholarship AND a Science Communication Fellowship at the Sunset Zoo
7 May 2016 -
KSU Division of Biology Most Promising Students: including Victoria (pic)
5 March 2016 -
Victoria's first poster at the Missouri Valley American Society for Microbiology meeting (pic)
1 Jan 2016 -
Happy New Year! Early bacterial community assembly post-disturbance is related to organic matter, not pH (Environmental Microbiology)
3 Nov 2015 -
Collaborative K-State geomicrobiology publication in press at Frontiers in Microbiology: Niche differentiation of methanogens in coalbeds
10 Sept 2015 -
A little local Alaskan research highlight: Adak, AK Eagle's Call (p. 3)
1 Sept 2015 -
A well organized and engaged group at the LTER All-Scientists Meeting Microbial Ecology workshop