Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Charlie Diaz

Measuring Greenhouse Gas Fluxes from Wetland Soil Cores with Fluctuating Water Levels

Wetland soils have been shown to be significant sources of methane, an effect which may offset the benefits of wetland ecosystem carbon dioxide consumption. Though methane emissions have been observed from wetlands at the ecosystem scale, the mechanisms which drive the temporal variability of those fluxes are not entirely understood. Soil redox conditions, which are influenced by the degree of saturation of the soil, play a significant role in the production of methane inside of soils. The goal of my research is to incubate soil samples from tidally influenced wetlands using a device I created to alter the water level inside of soil samples and to observe the effect that water level has on greenhouse gas fluxes.

 

Message To Sponsor

Thank you for sponsoring my research! Working in a research lab during the school year was one of the most valuable learning experiences I’ve had here at UC Berkeley. Thanks to the URAP summer stipend, I have the opportunity to continue this work into the summer with even more focus and dedication. Thank you!