Biology and Environmental Sciences at ORNL

Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Melissa Cregger receives prestigious Presidential Early Career Award 🎉 ORNL’s Melissa Cregger has received the Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding early-career scientists and engineers. The award recognizes her fundamental research on plant-microbe-soil interactions, which drives innovations that support the bioeconomy and national energy security. Congratulations, Melissa! Read more: https://lnkd.in/g33VirYA

📣 Catch up on the latest #Science news from Oak Ridge National Laboratory! This month’s highlights: • First-ever simulation includes high-resolution detain on building infrastructure, improving accuracy • New series provides deep dives into key topics in Billion-Ton report  • Unique measurement tool analyzes plants and soil for better crops • Computational hydrologist Phong Le explores water resource risks Dive into all the details in this month’s #Newsletter and subscribe to stay up to date on the latest and greatest #Biology and #EnvironmentalScience news from ORNL!

Congratulations to Arthur “Art” Ragauskas, the acting UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair of Biorefining, on being selected as a Laureate of the Global Lithuanian Awards 2024 in the category for International Scientific Achievements by Global Lithuanian Leaders. This prestigious award recognizes his work alongside Lithuanian colleagues on projects involving biofuels, bioengineering, biomaterials, and biorefineries. Read more: https://lnkd.in/efjwMWtp

Exploring the rising tide of flood risks for humans: Phong Le, a computational hydrologist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is helping develop unique, detailed simulations of watersheds to provide better long-term predictions of flooding 🌊 Le is working as part of a collaborative effort to better understand and mitigate the impact of severe storms in Southeast Texas. He’s developing a modeling framework that could help scientists understand the potential impact of regional flooding in future years. “These are important modeling capabilities that significantly move our sustainability science forward,” Le said. “While we are specifically using the framework to study Southeast Texas, our results are generalizable enough to be applied to other areas of the country.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/eXnaYbuY

The Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is the main repository of worldwide terrestrial ecology data gathered by NASA, including observations from a new campaign, the Biodiversity Survey of the Cape, or BioSCape. The campaign is the first to collect biodiversity observations from space. The project used airborne imaging spectroscopy and a laser-based remote sensing method called LiDAR (light detection and ranging) along with field observations across coastal and marine environments in the Greater Cape Floristic Region of South Africa, an area which contains the world’s greatest variety of plant species in a temperate region and the third-largest number of unique marine species. The BioSCape campaign data are freely available on the ORNL DAAC website – learn more: https://lnkd.in/e8vqcjih

Looking back on 2024: Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers continued to capture key data in one of the fastest-warming regions in the world. As part of the Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments in the Arctic, or NGEE Arctic project, ORNL scientists have been trekking across the Alaskan tundra, gathering data to shape tundra models that can better predict change across the pan-Arctic. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eMAcjCJm #YearInReview #BigScience

#YearInReview: Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers developed a first-of-its-kind dataset that connects molecular information to ecosystem-level processes. The dataset, which is unprecedented in its size and scope, provides in-depth information on 27 genetically distinct variants, or genotypes, of Populus trichocarpa, a poplar tree of interest as a bioenergy crop. With this information, scientists hope to better understand how natural systems function and advance scientific breakthroughs for better plants and increased natural carbon storage. Read more: https://lnkd.in/edVwJxYT #YearInReview #BigScience

This year, scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory identified a key gene controlling root growth. Using a vast poplar dataset, they confirmed the molecular function of one hub gene, PtrXB38, and found that plants with the gene produced more prolific and deeper roots. Read more about this discovery and how it supports the development of better bioenergy crops and other plants that can thrive in difficult conditions: https://lnkd.in/gxUxSjEF #YearInReview #BigScience

Wrapping up 2024: Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers studied the complex processes in coastal ecosystems to better represent these valuable environments in the nation’s predictive land models. Coastal wetlands serve as an effective barrier to absorb flooding impacts and guard against property damage. However, severe storms, chronic sea level rise and increasing infrastructure, plus other stressors present unique challenges for coastal ecosystems. ORNL researchers gathered and analyzed data about how water, soils, plants and microbes interact in these environments, with the goal of improving Earth system simulations that help decision-makers prepare for the future. Read more: https://lnkd.in/e8RjYJHy

Looking back on 2024: The Distributed Active Archive Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory began stewarding #data on one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems in the world. The ORNL DAAC is the main repository of worldwide terrestrial #ecology data gathered by NASA, including observations from a new campaign, Biodiversity Survey of the Cape, or BioSCape, which collects #biodiversity data from the Greater Cape Floristic Region of South Africa. The region contains the world’s greatest variety of plant species in a temperate region and the third-largest number of unique marine species. Read more about how the ORNL DAAC helps get crucial information from this ecological hotspot into the hands of scientists and resources managers along with other data from NASA Earth missions: https://lnkd.in/e8vqcjih #YearInReview #BigScience