Progress 03/01/17 to 02/28/19
Outputs
Target Audience:This grant supported a workshop to bring together diverse expertise related to biological transformation mechanisms that directly or indirectly affect phosphorus retention and release in agroecosystems and impacted receiving waters, including soils, streams, wetlands, and marine systems. The disciplinary perspectives included microbiologists, chemists, agricultural and environmental engineers, agronomists, and geologists, and participants came primarily from academia but also included a couple agroindustry researchers. (The government furlough prevented complete engagement during the workshop of USDA ARS representatives who had been involved in workshop planning and were scheduled to give presentations.) The goal was to bridge the cutting-edge knowledge in each of these diverse contexts and disciplines to promote advancement in our understanding of these biological determinants that are poorly characterized and underrepresented in the modeling of phosphorus fate and transport and the associated land management perspectives and policies. The workshop included 24 participants (2 remotely), including two from Canada and one from the UK, and two Ph.D. students and three postdoctoral scholars. Changes/Problems:Three USDA ARS employees who had been scheduled to participate and present at the workshop were not able due to the government furlough during the conference. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project included the active participation of two Ph.D. students and three postdoctoral researchers, in addition to the faculty and industry researchers. One of the students and two of the postdocs were presenters, and the others helped coordinate the breakout discussions and report out. The interdisciplinary and multi-ecosystem assembly of participants also bridged knowledge domains that are often discrete, enabling the cross pollination of ideas from relevant literature that might otherwise be overlooked. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?One of the desired outcomes from the workshop was a review paper that assembled the different perspectives of participants. After considerable discussion among participants following the workshop, it was decided that the best way to make a novel contribution to the literature would be a meta-analysis of phosphorus fluxes and partitioning in different contexts, based on NMR results. The specificity in analysis method was required due to artifacts of more common and inexpensive measurement approaches, which fail to properly describe some of the intracellular organic and inorganic phosphorus pools that were central to our discussion. A deficiency of appropriate data to make such a meta-analysis has put the paper initiative on hold, but an outline was developed and could be revisited. As mentioned above in Other Products, in the development of the workshop agenda and participant list, a group of participants developed a session at the Meeting of the Soil Science Society of America, January 7, 2019, in San Diego, CA. The session was entitled P Cycling in Soils: From the Molecular to the Field Scale. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The workshop (Microbial Determinants of Phosphorus Transport Workshop: Current state of knowledge, pressing knowledge gaps, and opportunities and strategies to include microbial activities in managmement models and practices) was held at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA from January 24-25, 2019. The day and a half agenda included 17 presentations organized into four sessions: Phosphorus in Soil Matrices, Phosphorus in Aquatic Ecosystems, Phosphorus Modeling, and Analytical Techniques. There were also break out sessions in which groups discussed the most pressing needs in relevant microbial activities, phosphorus and microbe monitoring and characterization techniques, modeling needs to incorporate these microbial reactions, and approaches for exploiting microbial activities in various ecosystem contexts. The workshop expenses included travel costs for all non-Penn State participants as well as conference facility rental expenses. The workshop brought together 24 participants from across the US., as well as two speakers from Canada and one from the UK (remotely). The diverse backgrounds and expertise successfully led to cross pollination of ideas and sparked unexpected discussions of specific phosphorus microbial details. Most notably, there was a lot of discussion of intracellular polyphosphate granules and their role in various microbial processes, with implications (deficiencies) in measurements and difference concepts in freshwater and marine settings. This specifically was identified as a minimally understood phosphorus pool of unknown significance in fluxes among different pools and environments.
Publications
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