Knauss legislative fellowships in Congress help build careers — and they're fun and educational. See our video and fact sheet for details.
R/P-49
Environmental controls of denitrification in estuarine sediments
Principal Investigator:
Jeffrey C. CornwellStart/End Year:
2000 - 2002Institution:
Horn Point Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental ScienceCo-Principal Investigator:
Todd Kana, Horn Point Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental ScienceTopic(s):
- Ecosystems and Restoration
Description:
In the lower Choptank estuary, we will identify the influence of temporal variation in organic matter loading and bottom water dissolved oxygen concentrations upon the rate of coupled nitrification/denitrification. We will compare our understanding of the sediment nitrogen cycle in the Choptank River to that in other Chesapeake subestuaries with different rates or sources of nitrogen inputs. Finally we will compare our understanding of the sediment nitrogen cycle in the Choptank River to that in other Chesapeake subestuaries with different rates or sources of nitrogen inputs.
Funding Start Year
2000
Funding End Year
2002
Related Publications:
Owens, MS; Cornwell, JC. 2020. Temporal enhancement of denitrification in bioirrigated estuarine sediments Aquatic Sciences82(4) . doi:10.1007/s00027-020-00742-y. UM-SG-RS-2020-11.
Program Announcements
News and Blogs
Featured Fellow
Nina Santos
Nina Santos is a Ph.D. student at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. For her dissertation, she is focused on small shrimp-like crustaceans called mysids – an understudied yet important part of many estuarine and coastal food webs.
Featured Research Project
Developing a habitat model for mysids, an important link in Chesapeake Bay food webs
Mysids are important mesozooplankton prey for many species of fish in Chesapeake Bay and are an important link in transferring energy from lower to upper trophic levels. Mysids also serve as biological vectors for benthic-pelagic coupling due to their diel vertical migration and omnivorous prey-switching behavior, which makes mysids important regulators of food web architecture. Despite their central role in coastal food webs, surprisingly little is known about mysid ecology and dynamics in Chesapeake Bay.
