University Calendar
A Tale of Two Sides: Role of Vegetation in the Geochemical Cycling of Metals in Soils
Plants accumulate all stable elements found on the Earth’s surface at different levels. However, the mechanisms of plant up take of elements, the biological role of many elements, and the impact of plants on the speciation and behavior of accumulated elements in the environment are poorly understood. Our research group has been studying two areas of plant-metal interactions: a) the uptake, distribution, and speciation of selected heavy metals in edible plants grown in contaminated soils, and b) how plants control the dynamics of major and trace elemental cycling in natural ecosystems. Our studies suggest that plant up take of certain elements is critical for the survival of the ecosystems, while plant mobilization of certain other elements is highly toxic for humans. A discussion of these two sides of vegetation-induced mobilization of trace elements in soils, and how field, greenhouse, and molecular studies can be combined to investigate plant-metal interactions will be presented.
About Dr. Satish Myneni, Associate Professor, Department of Geosciences, Princeton University
Dr. Myneni is a faculty member in the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University, and is also affiliated with the departments of Chemistry and Civil & Environmental Engineering. He is a visiting faculty at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley, CA). His group studies the geochemistry of Earth surface systems- specifically on the biogeochemistry of various inorganic contaminants and nutrients in soils, sediments and in natural waters; chemical and structural evolution of disordered Fe-, and Al-oxides and their impact on environmental processes; and on the chemistry and cycling of different elements in the pristine and disturbed terrestrial ecosystems. His group conducts field studies on these systems, examines them at the molecular level using different microscopy and spectroscopy probes, and attempts to integrate to address different questions. Dr. Myneni received his M.Tech. degree from IIT, India, his Ph. D from The Ohio State University