Projects and Funding

Research Projects and Recent Funding.

1. Estonian Research Council (2016-2018). The Estonian Research Council funded a two year Postdoctoral Fellowship for a project on ‘Greenhouse Gas Fluxes from Global Peatlands’ (€76,000) . Dr Jaan Pärn, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Biogeochemistry based within the School of Geography, Geology and Environment at Keele University is leading and executing the project under my supervision. Dr Pärn is currently analysing collected primary data for global scale estimation of greenhouse gas fluxes from peatlands and has since submitted a manuscript on global N2O fluxes from organic soils for publication in a top ranking journal. At the same time experiments underway to elucidate the relative magnitudes of microbial processes (i.e. denitrification, nitrification, methanogensis and methanotrophy) that are mainly responsible for greenhouse gas production in peatlands. The experiments are focusing on the response of tropical, sub-tropical temperate and boreal peatbogs to changes in soil moisture in influencing the microbial sources and strengths of nitrous oxide and methane production processes. Much of this research relies on the use of stable isotopes to pin-point shifts in N and C transformations when stressed under drying conditions or when saturated with water. This will help discern the implications of predicted global changes in precipitation and peatbog hydrology for greenhouse gas production.

This work is unique in a sense that it builds on an extensive field-based measurement of greenhouse gas fluxes from 63 peatland sites across >20 countries in the six continents using a synchronized methodology. The measured patterns in N2O fluxes will be attempted to explain if these are dominated by nitrification, denitrification or any other alternative pathways when there is a shift in moisture regime of peat from tropical, sub-tropical to temperate northern peatlands.

Dr Jaan Pärn is measuring greenhouse gas fluxes from the Mignient bog in north Wales, Snowdonia as part of the global flux measurement campaigns.

2. Santander Research Grant, 2016. A research support grant (£3000) is awarded to Drs Sami Ullah and Aleksandar Radu to visit  Sao Paolo State University  and University de Campinas in Brazil to create a framework for research collaboration in nitrogen biogeochemistry and analytical environmental chemistry. This framework will be used to apply for funding for a joint project and submit the grant proposal to the BBSRC-FAPESP program. We both are excited to fully avail this opportunity for furthering our international research portfolio! A visit to these institutions is planned in November 2016, which will be followed by a joint grant proposal for submission to BBSRC-FAPESP program in the summer of 2017.

3. 2015-2016. Royal Society, UK. Respiratory reduction of nitrous oxide: Is it coupled to biological nitrogen fixation in peatbogs? (£6266). Respiratory reduction of N2O is coupled with N2 fixation in Pseudomonas stutzeri (Desloover, et al. 2014) unlike previous reports of direct assimilation of N2O by nitrogen fixers (Farias et al.2013; Jensen and Burris 1986). N2O consumption either pathway could have implications for nitrogen flux from natural ecosystems, particularly nutrient-poor peatbogs where N2O consumption frequently happens. This research will evaluate the presence and extent of N2O reduction coupled to N2 fixation in bulk peatbog samples, which is an unexplored pathway of N2O consumption in peatbogs. The study would provide an insight into the existence of alternative pathways of N2O consumption and N2 fixation. As a result, the following questions will be addressed for guiding potential future research:

a) Is N2O consumption linked to N2 fixation in peatbogs at all?b) Is N2O assimilated directly by nitrogen fixers as a substrate or is reduced to N2 first by denitrifiers followed by its fixation in a coupled reaction driven by two different enzymes (i.e. N2O reductase and nitrogenase)?c) What is the magnitude of N2 fixation in peat under N2O compared to an N2 headspace as substrates?

Peat moss species under incubation

4. October 2015-2017. UK Natural Environment Research Council’s in-kind grant for 15N analysis in peat moss species at the NERC’s Life Science MS Facility at Lancaster (£3240) in collaboration of Dr Andrew Stott, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Lancaster. This funding support contributes to the project on measuring the impact of atmospheric reactive nitrogen deposition upon biological nitrogen fixation in ombrotrophic peatbogs from southern England to northern Scotland and northern Sweden. Peat moss samples incubated under 15N2 gas headspace (10% v/v) will be dried and analysed for 15N content for the quantification of biological nitrogen fixation.

5. September 2015-2017, full PhD studentship funded by the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Keele University (Acorn Program) with an in-kind analytical support from the NERC’s Stable Isotope Facility at Lancaster (£45,692). The project is focused on investigating the effects of increased atmospheric reactive nitrogen deposition upon rates of biological nitrogen fixation in peatbogs. To cover the range of environmental and depositional scenarios, the study will be conducted at 7 sites across the length of Britain, with sites in southern England generally providing examples of bogs experiencing high Nr deposition (>30 kg N ha-1 yr-1) and northern Scotland representing Britain’s cleanest regions (Figure 1). An additional site located in the Degero Stormyr peatland complex in northern Sweden is also part of this research, which represent the cleanest of all the sites in terms of atmospheric nitrogen deposition. Research work at this site will be undertake with the support Dr M. Peichl and Prof M. Nilsson, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences at Umea, Sweden.

Figure 1: A map showing the field sites situated in a) Britain and b) Sweden. The sites are 1. Forsinard, 2. Glensaugh, 3. Moor House, 4. Peak District, 5. Migneint, 6. Fenn's Moss, 7. Dartmoor and 8. Degerö Stormyr.

PhD student Ernesto Saiz Val at the Degero peatbog site near Umea, Sweden, getting ready for in situ incubations using 15N2 gas.

6. 2014-2015. An MSc project on the characterization and comparison of nitrogen cycling processes and enzyme activities of riverine sediments under varied geomorphic features in headwater streams. The research is undertake in collaboration of Natural England in Staffordshire and is led by Mr. Luke Glover at Keele University. This research is further support by an ERASMUS exchange student from the Dublin Institute of Technology (Ms Aishling Percival) for her contribution towards enzyme activity characterization in relation to the quality of dissolved organic carbon.

Ms Aishling Percival and Mr Luke Glover working on microbial activities

7. Summer 2014. Royal Society of Chemistry and Nuffield Foundation for a project on the characterization and comparison of soil organic carbon quality indices including SUVA, aromaticity, permanganate oxidizable carbon, total organic carbon and microbial respiration (£1440).

8. January 2014-2017. A PhD project on developing low-cost disposable Ion Selective Electrodes for nitrate and ammonium measurement in environmental samples (£48,000). The project is jointly supervised with Dr Aleksandar Radu in Chemistry at Keele University. Environmental media samples range from soils, slurry, compost to fresh and saline water. Tolulope (Andy) Fayose is mainly running this project as a PhD student.

9. Summer 2014. European Regional Development Fund Project (ERDF) for a consultancy project on nutrient inventory (nitrate & ammonium gradient in relation to C:N ratio and oxic conditions) in cattle slurry (£3000).

10. January 2014. Keele University capital equipment fund for the purchase of a Thermo Scientific Flash Organic Elemental Analyser for the analysis carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulphur and oxygen (£28,000).

11. July 2013. Analytical Chemistry Trust Fund for a project on dissimilatory nitrate reduction in soil: development of the microdiffusion-hypobromite oxidation technique for determining 15N isotope in NH4

+ in different soil types (£1440 with PI Dr F. Sgouridis).12. October 2013. British Society of Soil Science, UK for the purchase of a portable soil

science testing kit for teaching field environmental assessment skills (£700).

13. June 2013. Keele University and UK Research Council analytical support fund for the purchase of Lachat QuickChem 8500 Series Flow Injection Analyser for the analysis of nitrate, nitrite and ammonium (£25,000).

14. October 2012-2015. Analysis and simulation of the Long-Term/Large-Scale interactions of C, N and P in UK land, freshwater and atmosphere, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council for investigation of the role of land use type and landscape position on denitrification rates in the Conwy and Ribble-Wyre River catchments, UK (£396,942 @100% FEC awarded to Keele) as part of £2.5 million consortium grant involving 8 national institutes. Research work on in situ denitrification measurement in soils under different land use types in the Ribble-Wyre and Conwy River catchments is currently underway and the project is coordinated by Dr Fotis Sgouridis, Postdoctoral Research Associate in N Biogeochemistry at Keele University. The project utilizes the 15N Gas Flux method for the measurement of denitrification in natural and semi-natural ecosystems at high spatio-temporal resolution that have never been done before, to our knowledge. For details about the project site, please, read the paper here (Sgouridis F and Ullah S. 2014. Denitrification potential of organic, forest and grassland soils in the Ribble-Wyre and Conwy River catchments, UK. Environmental Science-Processes & Impacts 16(7), 1551-1562. Other denitrification, the greenhouse gas fluxes and the contribution of denitrification to bulk N2O emissions at these sites is also measured. For further details of the overall consortium project, please, visit https://wiki.ceh.ac.uk/display/ltls/Home.

Different land use types under study( Image published on the cover page of ESPI Journal Vol 16, Royal Society of Chemistry

15. August 2011. Keele University capital equipment fund for the purchase of an Agilent Gas Chromatograph with specialized greenhouse gas (N2O, CH4 and CO2) analysis system (£28,297).

16. Keele University (2011-2014): Understanding the dynamics of greenhouse gases in the pore water of riverine sediments. This research work is part of a current PhD student at Keele University (John Weatherill) working on the coupled dynamic biogeochemistry-geophysics of hyporheic zone.

17. Keele University and McGill University, Canada. Large scale synthesis and estimation of N2O and CH4 fluxes from the Canadian forest soils. Synthesis underway based on data generated as part of CFCAS, BIOCAP Canada and HydroQuebec Canada funding.

18. Academic Visitor (2013): Ms Shurong Duan from Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, China, investigating and comparing enzyme activities (denitrifier and nitrifiers, particularly) in soils collected from grasslands, moorlands and forests in the UK.