During the previous DataCAFe, PhD candidate Milica Radanovic lead a discussion on her thesis work while fending off rabid committee members and lively collaborators. A summary of her thesis, in her words, is below.
Environmental impacts on the nitrogen cycle as a physical process creating or depleting pools of reactive nitrogen in soil has been greatly explored. A general understanding of environmental impacts on inorganic nitrogen loss, such as N2O and NO3-, has been establish. In order to understand and manage these losses, a better understanding of the biological communities driving these losses is needed. Microbial communities capable of driving nitrification and denitrification are impacted by environmental factors, but there is a gap in knowledge of how their dynamics are altered. Coupling of new and old techniques is required to fully understand the dynamics of microbial communities behind reactive nitrogen loss. Without knowledge of the biological mechanisms driving the creation of inorganic nitrogen products, proper management techniques will be difficult to develop across diverse systems.