The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Biological and Environmental Research (BER) Program announces its interest in receiving applications for research in Environmental System Science (ESS). The ESS program goal is to advance an integrated, robust, and scale-aware predictive understanding of terrestrial systems and their interdependent microbial, biogeochemical, ecological, hydrological, and physical processes. To support this goal, the program uses a systems approach to develop an integrative framework to elucidate the complex processes and controls on the structure, function, feedbacks, and dynamics of terrestrial systems, that span from molecular to global scales and extend from the bedrock through the soil, rhizosphere, and vegetation to the atmosphere.

This FOA will consider applications that focus on improving the understanding and representation of ecosystems and watersheds in ways that advance the sophistication and capabilities of local, regional, and larger scale models. Research funded through this solicitation will address the following Science Research Areas: 1) plant-soil-microbe interactions and their influence on belowground biogeochemical processes; 2) synthesis studies using existing data that address testing of ESS-relevant hypotheses and development of transferable insights into knowledge gaps for U.S. southeast coastal systems; and 3) synthesis studies on contributions and vulnerabilities of Earth system processes in marginal and degraded lands. All applications are required to clearly address integrative, hypothesis-driven research and describe the existing needs/gaps in state-of-the-art models in a Model-Experiment (ModEx) approach. Applicants should provide details on how the results of the proposed research will be used to improve the predictability and sophistication of integrated watershed systems and/or terrestrial ecosystem models. Current information on ESS can be found at https://ess.science.energy.gov

• Deadline for Pre-Applications (required): December 11, 2024 at 5:00pm ET
• Deadline for Applications: March 13, 2025 at 11:59pm ET