Geobiology
Geobiology encompasses research on the interactions among biological,
geological, and environmental processes on the evolution of life on Earth, and on
the factors that have shaped the long-term evolution of both life forms and their
environment. The development of new and powerful tools in the biological
sciences (genomics, proteinomics, and developmental biology) and in
geochemistry, mineralogy, stratigraphy, and paleontology offers unprecedented
opportunities for advances. Two primary research directions are identified:
1. Topics related to interactions between Earth systems and biologic
processes:
• How the habitability of the Earth is affected by natural and anthropogenic
environmental change
• Function and diversity of microbial life in a wide range of environmental
systems, and the relative importance of biological and inorganic processes
in weathering, soil formation, mineralization, and other geological and
pedological processes
• Biogeochemical interactions and cycling among organisms, ecosystems,
and the environment, including applications of geomicrobiology to
monitoring and remediating environmental degradation
• Relationship between ecology and climate change, including the role of
rare events in reshaping ecosystems and climate, from local to global
scales
2. Topics related to the origin and evolution of life on Earth:
• Biological and environmental controls on how species diversity changes
through time, including ecological and biogeographic selectivity, and
causes of extinction and survival
• Nature of evolutionary innovation through the integration of biological,
fossil, and geochemical data
• Rates at which organisms, communities, and ecosystems are able to
respond to environmental perturbation over short and long time scales.
None of the existing core programs have the intellectual scope or sufficient
resources to accommodate a prolonged emphasis on geobiology. The most closely
related program within EAR is G&P, but it is already severely oversubscribed 3
and is thus unable to adequately cover many important biological and
geochemical aspects of geobiology.
3 Over the past five years, G&P received approximately 290 proposals per year;
its success rate was 20-25%, compared with an overall EAR success rate of 31%.
FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
92
About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the
original work has been recomposed from XML files created
from the original paper book, not from the original
typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths,
word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific
formatting, however, cannot be retained,
and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted.
Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative
version for attribution.
Geobiology encompasses research on the interactions among biological,
geological, and environmental processes on the evolution of life on Earth, and on
the factors that have shaped the long-term evolution of both life forms and their
environment. The development of new and powerful tools in the biological
sciences (genomics, proteinomics, and developmental biology) and in
geochemistry, mineralogy, stratigraphy, and paleontology offers unprecedented
opportunities for advances. Two primary research directions are identified:
1. Topics related to interactions between Earth systems and biologic
processes:
• How the habitability of the Earth is affected by natural and anthropogenic
environmental change
• Function and diversity of microbial life in a wide range of environmental
systems, and the relative importance of biological and inorganic processes
in weathering, soil formation, mineralization, and other geological and
pedological processes
• Biogeochemical interactions and cycling among organisms, ecosystems,
and the environment, including applications of geomicrobiology to
monitoring and remediating environmental degradation
• Relationship between ecology and climate change, including the role of
rare events in reshaping ecosystems and climate, from local to global
scales
2. Topics related to the origin and evolution of life on Earth:
• Biological and environmental controls on how species diversity changes
through time, including ecological and biogeographic selectivity, and
causes of extinction and survival
• Nature of evolutionary innovation through the integration of biological,
fossil, and geochemical data
• Rates at which organisms, communities, and ecosystems are able to
respond to environmental perturbation over short and long time scales.
None of the existing core programs have the intellectual scope or sufficient
resources to accommodate a prolonged emphasis on geobiology. The most closely
related program within EAR is G&P, but it is already severely oversubscribed 3
and is thus unable to adequately cover many important biological and
geochemical aspects of geobiology.
3 Over the past five years, G&P received approximately 290 proposals per year;
its success rate was 20-25%, compared with an overall EAR success rate of 31%.
FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
92
About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the
original work has been recomposed from XML files created
from the original paper book, not from the original
typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths,
word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific
formatting, however, cannot be retained,
and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted.
Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative
version for attribution.