Improving biogeochemical knowledge through technological innovation

© The Ecological Society of America www.frontiersinecology.org T the history of science, innovative measuring techniques in combination with new theories have advanced our understanding of the natural world. The invention of the telescope allowed remotely based exploration of the solar system and modern telescopes, equipped with detectors that scan across the electromagnetic spectrum, have provided data to test the concepts and theories of cosmology and relativity; an application of x-ray crystallography led to the discovery of the structure of DNA and the subsequent revolution in molecular biology and genetics; and deep-sea drilling technologies – originally associated with petroleum and natural gas extraction – provided key support for the hypothesis of continental drift, to list just a few examples. Our understanding of biogeochemical cycles has benefited considerably from both technical and conceptual advances. Here, we examine the important technological advances that have helped transform our knowledge of biogeochemistry in recent years and that will continue to do so as they are incorporated more extensively into ecological studies. We focus on carbon (C) because it is the major currency by which primary productivity and respiratory processes are assessed, illustrating how spaceborne remote-sensing innovations have made global-scale calculations of oceanic productivity at fine spatial and temporal scales possible, as well as the integration of inundation and vegetation dynamics into the calculation of methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) exchanges in wetlands. We also discuss how adaptation of micrometeorological approaches in measuring terrestrial C balance has refined our understanding of ecosystem function. Characterization of the microbial organisms that perform many processes is integral to understanding biogeochemical cycles. It is also essential to determine the fluxes of materials among reservoirs, which requires measurements of transport processes and associated chemical constituents. We therefore discuss new analytical techniques in molecular biology and chemistry, as well as advances in the measurement of turbulent mixing required to compute fluxes. COUPLED BIOGEOCHEMICAL CYCLES