URoL:ASC: Using Rules of Life to Capture Atmospheric Carbon: Interdisciplinary Convergence to Accelerate Research on Biological Sequestration (CARBS)

Effective solutions to mitigate climate change are urgently needed and require adaptive strategies implemented on immediate and long-term timelines. Federal, state, and local governments have made major investments in biological carbon sequestration for climate change mitigation, but these investments are often at odds with community priorities to adapt to climate-induced disturbances such as drought, wildfire, and sea level rise.

To address this challenge, we propose Convergence to Accelerate Research on Biological Sequestration (CARBS), an approach that builds on existing investments to ensure the US’ leadership in climate change mitigation and adaptation. CARBS combines Indigenous Knowledge (IK), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and environmental DNA (eDNA) into carbon capture research oriented by 3-Ds (discovery, development, and deployment) and 3-Ps (protocols, prescriptions, and pedagogies) of interdisciplinary convergence.

We will focus on working landscapes, from montane to coastal ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest, to answer questions such as: How can carbon sequestration projects be coordinated across diverse social and ecological contexts for optimal outcomes? How can land management, restoration, and conservation be presented as a range of options for communities to choose from rather than a single mandatory model?

How can early engagement with historically marginalized communities build trust, promote innovation, and encourage the adoption of technologies to mitigate climate impacts in vulnerable ecosystems? Technical Abstract

Life on Earth depends on energy transformations from light into carbon-based molecules, which are metabolized to build and maintain biological structures. Metabolic scaling theory explains how the metabolic rate of organisms increases with their biomass, a relationship that spans many orders of magnitude in size across biological kingdoms. This “rule of life” is well-known, but understanding how genomics (i.e., information processing) relates to the metabolism (i.e., energy processing) of ecosystems remains a challenge, especially under social and ecological change.

CARBS combines metabolic scaling and collective action theories to address basic biological questions while delivering translational science for sustainable carbon sequestration. We will explore socioecological and genomic controls on carbon dioxide and methane fluxes to quantify and map landscape ‘metabolism’, leveraging extant investments in ecosystem flux networks and remote sensing.

We will use experiments to test theories and to build novel AI tools that will deliver the first study of IK and eDNA applied to carbon capture, co-produced with communities in an iterative process designed to improve land management and conservation. This will include data-enabled predictions of ecosystem carbon fluxes as well as experimental selection of soil microbiomes to assess the potential for increasing biological carbon sinks in human-engineered systems.

Our research activities span the whole range of oxidation-reduction potential of the terrestrial biosphere, from montane forests to estuaries of the Pacific Northwest, with outcomes and approaches that can serve as a model for the nation and beyond.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.