Some scientists believe the Paramos, a grassland ecosystem found in the northern Andes Mountains of South America, are “the world’s fastest evolving and coolest biodiversity hotspot,” according to Estelle Couradeau, assistant professor of soils and environmental microbiology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences. T
Some scientists believe the Paramos, a grassland ecosystem found in the northern Andes Mountains of South America, are “the world’s fastest evolving and coolest biodiversity hotspot,” according to Estelle Couradeau, assistant professor of soils and environmental microbiology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences. This ecosystem — which is the prime headwater for lower tropical ecosystems and downstream urban centers in the Andean and the Orinoco-Amazon regions — is in jeopardy, she explained.
Couradeau will lead a National Science Foundation-funded international team conducting research on how climate change will affect soil microbes in the ecologically fragile and important Paramos ecosystem in Colombia’s Andes Mountains.
The $500,000, three-year grant will support scientists from Penn State, Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and University of Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano in Colombia, to conduct collaborative research in the Paramo Chingaza National Park in Colombia. The researchers will investigate changes in temperature and moisture, how these changes affect the soil microbial diversity and the function of soil microbes in storing organic carbon in the Paramo soils.
Read more at: Penn State University
Graduate student Sarah Glass, advised by lead researcher Estelle Couradeau, assistant professor of soils and environmental microbiology, at the Chingaza Paramos field site in Colombia. The National Science Foundation award will support Glass' doctoral degree dissertation work. (Photo Credit: Penn State. Creative Commons)
