Microbiomes of Aquatic, Plant, and Soil Systems Across Kansas (MAPS)
In December 2023, Kansas NSF EPSCoR finished a major project titled Microbiomes of Aquatic, Plant, and Soil Systems across Kansas, or MAPS. This six-year initiative leveraged a $20 million award from the National Science Foundation to build research capacity in Kansas. It was further bolstered with a match of $2 million from the Kansas Board of Regents and $2 million from each institution.
People and Partners: Since launching in 2017, the MAPS project enabled research collaborations between dozens of faculty members and more than 70 students across the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, Wichita State University, Fort Hays State University, and Haskell Indian Nations University.
Vision: The project envisions a world in which microbiomes and their interactions with the environment are used to manage ecosystem processes and mitigate environmental degradation in agricultural and native landscapes.
Mission: The overall goal aimed to elucidate how microbiomes interact within native and agriculturally dominated aquatic, plant, and soil habitats, leveraging the steep precipitation gradient across Kansas as a means of projecting system response to environmental change. To this end, MAPS provided a vehicle for education, training, and outreach that includes informing policymakers and managers.
Leadership: Nationally recognized chemist Kristin Bowman-James oversaw the project as its principal investigator. For 18 years (2005 to 2023), she led this and three similar initiatives as the director of Kansas NSF EPSCoR , before passing the role to KU engineer Belinda Sturm.
Research Themes and Leaders
1. Aquatic Microbiome Systems
2. Plant Microbiome Systems
3. Soil Microbiome Systems
4. Synthesis of Aquatic, Plant, and Soil Microbiome Systems
Impact on Kansas
The mission of the MAPS project was driven by a vision that one day microbiomes can benefit ecosystems, much like how gut microbes aid digestion. In other words, the team envisioned using microbes to sustain crops in droughts, improve water quality, beef up carbon in soil, and solve other ecological challenges.
Despite a year-long shutdown during the pandemic, the team published more than 90 scholarly articles, making numerous key discoveries of high priority to Kansas.
The team’s agricultural soil studies revealed how microbes influence the steepness of the decline in soil organic carbon with depth. They showed how anaerobic microsites boost carbon in restored grasslands after ending row crop agriculture. They also found that modified rooting depths and precipitation regimes alter water flow patterns and fluxes of dissolved organic carbon throughout watersheds—insights that will aid in solving major concerns about the Earth’s changing climate.
As a result of this project, Kansas scientists have become more competitive in acquiring federal funding, leveraging the project to garner at least $35 million in additional funding. Research expertise was also bolstered because of the project’s four faculty hires at the participating universities.
Leading the way
Chuck Rice, university distinguished professor of agronomy at K-State played a key leadership role in the MAPS project. He was a co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and continues to lead national research on agriculture's ability to become greenhouse gas negative. His work with MAPS studied three types of tillage systems on a dataset spanning from 1975 to 2018. Their key finding: no-till increased soil carbon content even after 44 years of cultivation.
K-State news storyMicrobe discovery
The team uncovered a link between a plants’ homesite and the specific local microbes. The results support a hypothesis known as the “home field advantage,” where the unique homesite microbes may represent microbial specialists that are linked to plant stress responses. These results shed light on the complex interplay between plant host and soil microbes.
Aquatic discovery
The team designed an experimental approach to better understand vegetation areas bordering streams. These areas filter fertilizer and other materials that wash into streams during storms. Scientists knew little about the way materials move through these zones before this project. Now they know that these areas are highly efficient at removing ammonium, and they have the tools needed to learn more.
Plants discovery
The team revealed why planting diverse crops instead of single species boosts agricultural yields. The study, which appeared in Nature Communications, shows how pathogens in the soil have a harder time thriving in diverse environments.
Soil discovery
The team of scientists showed that roots and microbes combine forces to govern soil structure in ways that influence how water and nutrients are released from and flow through soils, and thus govern climate. By integrating concepts from disciplines old and new, this work outlines four fundamental questions thatmust be investigated to more accurately model soil structural parameters that reflect the rapidly changing conditions in Earth’s critical zone—from groundwater to vegetation canopy.
Educational Impacts on Kansas
Promoting education and workforce development
The MAPS project spearheaded, leveraged, and supported a range of educational activities, impacting Kansas by:
- empowering undergrads with research experiences
- creating new educational resources for Kansas K-12 students and teachers from diverse backgrounds based on MAPS research
- offering secondary science educators professional development experiences
- continuing the momentum of a Native American internship program called the Haskell Environmental Research Studies Institute (HERS) program supporting American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander undergraduate students for graduate study, and as future STEM professionals.
- partnering with Lawrence and Topeka public schools, providing targeted lessons about Kansas ecology for elementary students in English and Spanish.
Broad impact
Award winning educator Dr. Peggy Schultz led the Ecosystems of Kansas Summer Institute for the MAPS project at the University of Kansas Biological Field Station. It empowered a total of 56 Kansas teachers with knowledge and classroom resources and impacted teachers from 26 counties in Kansas for five summers from 2018 to 2023. When asked about the purpose of the program, Dr. Schults said: “We want to give teachers information and methods they can use, but we also want to show them how important we believe it is to invest in them.”
News storyKansas NSF EPSCoR is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) #1656006 award. Any opinions, findings, & conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) & do not necessarily represent the views of NSF.