Quantifying and Qualifying Denitrifying Microbial Communities in Restored and Natural Wetlands

Statement of Work: Objective: I propose to quantify and qualify the microbial communities in restored and natural wetlands on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Delaware. Specifically I would focus on the organisms associated with denitrification process, which involves the conversion of nitrate to nitrogen gas, thereby removing a key pollutant from water. My approach is to quantify microbial biomass and to qualify genes and enzyme activity related to denitrification, in order to integrate with vegetation and soil data that has already been collected.