CANCELLED - SEMINAR: Soil&Water Seminar, Oct.4, 1pm:

Unfortunately this event has been cancelled.



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The Soil&Water Seminar at 1pm on Tues, Oct. 4th will be given by Dan Murphy from the Soil Biology Group, School of Earth and Environment. All welcome!

TITLE: “Polar Biology – The Arctic Ecosystem”

ABSTRACT:The Polar Regions have profound significance for the Earth’s climate, ecosystems and ultimately human society. The Norwegian Government has designated Ny-Ã…lesund, Svalbard an international base for research in natural sciences. In Janurary 2000 39 countries including Australia signed the Svalbard Treaty and Ny-Ã…lesund is emerging as an international centre for research and debate on the environment and climate change. This combined with a diverse natural surrounding, varying from arctic desert to tundra and grassland communities, makes Svalbard an ideal location for my natural science research.

My interest is with nitrogen as this is the primary nutrient limiting plant production globally and is consequently a major regulator of ecosystem function. In many terrestrial ecosystems at high latitudes nitrogen availability determines primary productivity. However, understanding nitrogen and carbon cycling at the plant-soil interface still remains one of the greatest challenges limiting our ability to predict the extent by which climate and anthropogenic disturbance alter nutrient flows between microbial populations and soil-plant components. I will present an overview of our research findings to date and explain how we are using Nano-scale secondary ion mass spectrometry (NanoSIMS) to explore these soil-microbe-plant interactions.

http://www.see.uwa.edu.au/research/soil-biology