Achievement

IGERT trainee Jay Zarnetske and advisor Roy Haggerty (Geosciences) completed and published a study that provided the first definitive proof in a field setting that hyporheic zones remove nitrate from streams by returning nitrogen to the atmosphere. This has very important implication for inorganic nitrogen cycling and transport in streams and catchments. This work involved hydrologists and biologists. (see Zarnetske et al., 2011 for details). In addition, Zarnetske, Haggerty and collaborators definitely showed though field experiments that both transport conditions (residence time) and reactive substrate conditions (carbon supply) limit complex biogeochemical nitrogen cycling in stream sediments (Zarnetske et al., 2011; Zarnetske et al., in review).