Research Projects

U.S. seafood consumption has increased by more than 30% since the early 2000s, reflecting greater demand for healthy food sources. However, 65-85% of the seafood consumed in America is imported (Ferreira et al. 2022), highlighting vulnerabilities in food security and supply-chain resilience. Effective seafood harvest management is imperative to ensure the availability of seafood resources for U.S. food and economic security. For harvest of wild populations, this requires a clear understanding of species’ biology to define recreational and commercial harvest guidelines, provide resources for fishermen and processing supply chain partners to optimize efforts for economic resilience, and inform consumers of the sustainability of wild caught domestic seafood resources. Marine species that are shifting or expanding their ranges are producing new opportunities for emerging fisheries, the blue economy and food security. In particular, coastal waters off the Northeast United States have recently experienced an influx of new species that have high potential to expand and diversify its seafood resource portfolio. This is particularly important as New England has a long history of cultural and socio-economic reliance on seafood resources, but a number of core fisheries species have declined in recent years (e.g., Atlantic cod). However, successful growth and seafood harvest management of emerging fisheries is hampered by the lack of fundamental life history, demographic and physiological data on these species.

We will employ a suite of quantitative and qualitative methods to accomplish our goals of determining whether and how the Mass ECAN programs have increased peer to peer learning and knowledge exchange, increased adoption of best practices, and fostered new relationships and collaborations among climate change practitioners or researchers. For this project, we will use a combination of surveys, focus groups and semi-structured interviews. 

Baseline surveys will be conducted with Mass ECAN members (Program Participants), Work Group members and leaders to establish baselines in a variety of areas including use of existing resources, levels of knowledge, degree of collaboration and peer-learning. A series of follow-up surveys will be implemented over time to facilitate a repeated measures analysis of the data.  Participants will engage periodically in facilitated focus groups to generate additional data and feedback on the type and degree of peer learning that is occurring, whether specific products and activities facilitate networking, and emergence of collaborative programming and adoption of practices. Structured interviews will be conducted with work group leaders to obtain alternate perspectives on program approaches and resources and how they influence learning and collaboration. Focus groups and interviews will be transcribed and a content analysis will be conducted to consolidate key themes and synthesize results. Survey data will be combined with qualitative assessments to generate a feedback loop for program improvement and to build our understanding of effective processes and pedagogical approaches to be incorporated into the design of future programs.

Microplastics including nanoplastics will be extracted and collected from the samples of soil, water, plant and other organisms using the published procedures (with modifications when needed). Then, microplastics will be identified and examined for polymer types, shapes, sizes and quantity by LDIR, FTIR, Raman, TEM, SEM and other instruments. Plant uptake of contaminants from water and soil will be assessed using greenhouse experiments. We will also investigate the beneficial uses of engineered nanomaterials and biochars in agriculture using both hydroponic and soil-based experiments in greenhouse and in remediation using both soil and water.

The incidence and prevalence of chronic diseases, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), obesity, and other inflammation-related human disorders, have risen dramatically in recent decades in United States and other countries. These alarming trends suggest that it is of critical importance to develop novel strategies for preventing these chronic diseases. In this project, the effects and mechanisms of food-derived bioactive compounds on development of the chronic diseases will be investigated. Furthermore, the metabolic fate of food bioactives will be characterized following oral ingestion to inform innovative strategies to enhance their biological efficacy. In aggregate, these efforts will yield fundamental knowledge critical to develop safe and effective diet-based strategies for disease prevention and maintenance of health.

The managed landscape is a complex and unique system, with a wide variety of plant and insect species comprised on a relatively small area. The maintenance and management approaches vary depending on the owner, and each property is a unique ecosystem with the unique complex of insect pests.

Managing insect pests in this complex system inherently has many challenges, but recently is exacerbated by the limited availability of pest management tools. Because of the high aesthetic standard and almost zero tolerance to any plant damage, the main management strategy preferred by practitioners is a chemical control. Additionally, recent regulations limit or ban of some of the already scarce tools. Some active ingredients are losing efficacy due to pest resistance to insecticides while use of others becomes restricted and/or pulled from the market. For example, organophosphate chlorpyrifos is no longer available for turfgrass use, and neonicotinoid use became restricted leaving many landscape managers searching for alternatives. At the same time recent demands on environmentally friendly, less toxic approaches to insect pest management are in high demand. One of the promising alternatives is biocontrol, or inundative use of nematodes, fungi, bacteria, and their metabolites, as an alternative to conventional chemicals. However, using living organisms are challenging and efficacy is greatly dependent on the application techniques, weather condition, and other factors. In addition, the biorational and biological methods cannot compete with the chemical control because of cost and lack of robust efficacy data. Practitioners are reluctant to invest in products with unknown efficacy.

Another challenge in the system has been brought by the changing weather patterns. The complexity of the species, their phenology and adaptation changes bring us to seek new information on how to manage the pest in the changing environment.

We will contribute to NC1190 through applied research, education, and outreach activities that connect community engagement and institutional collaboration to water resource protection.

• Use results and data from programs such as the Acid Rain Monitoring Project, Upper Blackstone River Water Quality Monitoring Program, and federally supported water research studies applied research to demonstrate effective management practices.
• Incorporate WRRC’s online symposiums as examples of how information exchange fosters adaptive and collaborative action.
• Highlight student training and mentoring projects like Empowering Students through Water Research Experiences to show how capacity-building contributes to leadership in water science.
• Summarize findings through NC1190 annual reports, publications, and presentations to support multistate collaboration and share Massachusetts-based lessons on social drivers of conservation behavior.

Bacterial diseases of crops and livestock threaten food production, farm income, and the stability of local food systems in Massachusetts. Several of these disease-causing bacteria, including those that attack apples, tomatoes, and other specialty crops, use a microscopic “syringe” called the Type III Secretion System (T3SS) to punch holes in the surface of plant or animal cells and inject harmful proteins. These proteins disarm natural defenses and allow the bacteria to multiply. Because current control methods rely heavily on copper sprays or antibiotics, which can lose effectiveness and raise environmental and public health concerns, there is an urgent need for new, targeted strategies that block how these bacteria invade their hosts rather than simply trying to kill them.
 

Widespread, international and local interest in greening municipalities and increasing urban tree canopy cover continues, largely through community-based tree planting initiatives. It is generally estimated that newly-installed (i.e., planted) trees require at least 3 or more years before establishment, when they resume pre-transplant growth rates. Most trees installed in the urban environment are dug from the nursery field with a spade and wrapped in burlap and a metal basket (‘B&B’ or ‘balled and burlap’ or ‘BnB’). There is interest, however, by tree enthusiasts (i.e., shade tree committee members, Master Gardeners, etc.) and professional urban foresters (i.e., tree wardens/municipal foresters), in planting trees grown using other easier-to-plant systems, including a variety of container-grown (CG, IGF) and bare-root (BR) tree production methods. Ideally, trees that are being planted persist longer than the individuals that are installing them, thus trees grown from these production systems, must have the potential to grow long-term and reach maturity to provide optimal value in relation to the social, economic, and environmental services that urban trees are known for. This may be a challenge, since urban environments often present very difficult growing conditions that foster widespread urban tree morbidity and premature mortality. Though advances in understanding have been made, there is a dearth of empirical data describing the survival and growth of these trees, with the preponderance of research considering trees growing in traditionally forested environments or agricultural plots, rather than urban settings. Since budget constraints are routinely identified as a key limiting factor relative to urban forest management practices, there is also a need for further information concerning the longer-term costs associated with maintaining newly-installed urban trees.

Collecting growth and maintenance cost data on established urban oak specimens in Amherst, MA, produced using various nursery systems will 1) add to the overall base of knowledge concerning urban tree growth and survival 2) enable the quantification and further understanding of the relationship of urban tree growth/survival and nursery production system 3) Enable the quantification and further understanding of the long-term costs associated with planting and maintaining urban trees. The long-term goal of this work is to gather local, empirical data that will help urban forest practitioners consider the appropriate (i.e., most cost-effective, best-performing) nursery production system, when selecting trees for urban planting in Massachusetts and other New England communities.

1-The issue under investigation in this proposal is important because reproductive performance in beef and dairy cattle is often suboptimal resulting in increased intervals to conception and/or rebreeding failures that collectively reduce farm revenues due to decreased milk production or calf production efficiencies. Therefore, approaches that facilitate conception and increase conception rates will benefit the farmer and the economy in general.

2-The Umass research groups in this grant, Drs. Fissore and Visconti will be focused on two of the three Objectives,

Objective 1: Identify Mechanisms that Regulate Ovarian Function and Oocyte Quality during the Estrous Cycle.

Objective 2: Determine Factors Associated with Fertilization, Embryo Development, and Conceptus-Endometrial Interactions that Dictate Pregnancy Success.

3-Colleagues working in fertilization, embryo development, and fertility in mammalian species including humans, post-docs and graduate students, technicians, undergraduate students, embryologists, and producers.  

4-Oocyte quality is of one the parameters affected in high milk-yield cows. Therefore, examining how specific molecules and mechanisms might be downregulated or inactivated in those animals will improve the quality of the oocytes and their developmental potential such that a higher proportion of the fertilized oocytes and early embryos can progress to implantation and term-pregnancy. A second area is to prepare the sperm for fertilization akin to what happens in the female reproductive tracts. We plan to pre-treat bull sperm prior to adding it to oocytes or females. Recent studies from the Visconti lab show that changing the metabolic status of mouse sperm prior to fertilization can enhance post-fertilization outcomes, including embryo development and implantation success. We will extend these to the bovine sperm and embryos.

Legumes are important agricultural and feed crops second only to cereal crops. Grain legumes such as chickpea, lentils and the common bean provide 33 % of human dietary protein and up to 60 % in developing countries (Gentzbittel et al. 2015). Soybeans and alfalfa are important for animal feed and fodder as well as intercropping systems because of their ability to fix nitrogen. Because of their agronomic, nutritional and environmental benefits, it is imperative to understand factors that may influence agricultural yield and/or quality of feed.

Plants produce a diverse array of specialized metabolites to ensure adaptation to their ecological niche by functioning in pollinator attraction, herbivore repellence and pathogen resistance (Gershenzon and Dudareva 2007). Terpenes, a major class of specialized metabolites, play an important role in gene-by-environment interactions as shown in crops like rice and maize (Murphy and Zerbe 2020).

Terpenes have been well described in their response to biotic factors. However, comparatively fewer investigations have been performed for abiotic stress. In the changing face of climate, where heat, nutrients, and water all become important factors influencing agricultural productivity and food security, it is essential to understand the chemical response strategy employed in response to abiotic stressors. In this proposal, we will investigate the chemical response strategy (focusing on the terpenome) of Medicago truncatula to select abiotic conditions.

This research project investigates the impact of designed landscapes on green gentrification and green space equity in urban areas, with a focus on award-winning greenspaces in the Northeastern U.S. The study aims to understand how these well-designed greenspaces influence factors like socioeconomic shifts, land use changes, access, quality, and neighborhood characteristics. It also seeks to develop an equity index for these greenspaces and create a toolkit for promoting equity in landscape design and evaluation.

In this study, we aim to better understand professional development experiences that center equity and justice in science education for educators and students participating in and staffing 4-H programs at UMass Amherst. Specifically, we seek to examine the relationship between the designed experiences and learning on the part of undergraduate students, graduate students, 4-H and other out-of-school educators, and the impact on their students’ learning. Our research questions include:

What do undergraduate students, graduate students, 4-H and other out-of-school educators learn through science professional development experiences, and how do specific instructional designs provide opportunities for these participants’ engagement and learning?

How do undergraduate students, graduate students, 4-H and other out-of-school educators view the usefulness, quality, and impact of science professional development experiences?

What experiences provide opportunities for undergraduate students, graduate students, 4-H and other out-of-school educators to develop a commitment to equity- and justice-oriented science education?

How do these professional development experiences shape the science learning of the youths who participate in 4-H programs?

For this project, we focus on three particular issues that can be addressed by landscape modeling.

The need to accommodate the expected large increase in solar energy generation and protect high value forests

Strategies for creating connected networks of forestland that incorporate railroads, roads and highways, and potential avenues for connectivity across transportation infrastructure (road-stream crossings)

Projecting future ecological integrity and landscape connectivity that accounts for geographic shifts in species distribution that may yield ecological communities unlike those we currently use to classify forest types (novel ecosystems)

The goals and objectives of this work are to:

Goal #1: Set up monitoring sites and measure site characteristics that help understand the impacts of interventions on forest resources. Much of this work has already been done for our HWA-hemlock system, so we plan on continuing our monitoring of these sites and expanding our findings to our other systems.

Objective 1.1: Measure tree biomass in our monitoring stands for the three pest-host systems.

Objective 1.2: Quantify pest pressure in each of the monitoring stands, as well as other stand-level characteristics that may impact tree health (e.g., light availability for host trees, density, soil moisture).

Objective 1.3: Identify the presence of interventions that impact the pest-host system (e.g., biocontrol agents, active management interventions)

Objective 1.4: Measure growth of each stand pre- and post-pest introduction using tree-ring analyses.

Goal #2: Model continued growth into the future with and without interventions and quantify the carbon and ecosystem implications for each intervention scenario, including both forest carbon dynamics as well as timber products and/or loss of timber product production.

Objective 2.1: Parameterize our forest growth model to emulate the growth as seen in our example sites.

Objective 2.2: Design and apply a suite of intervention methods (e.g., active harvesting, biocontrol agents) over a 100 year simulation

Objective 2.3: Quantify ecosystem changes due to different interventions, including: species composition changes, in-forest aboveground carbon dynamics (sequestration, storage, and emissions), timber production, pest pressure, etc.

Through our study, we will gain a better understanding of how different intervention strategies will impact forest resources in the long-term when there is a response to forest pests.  The coupling of in depth forest ecosystem measurements and modeling gives this work a robust foundation upon which to observe and model current host-pest and intervention forest scenarios.  The flexibility of the modeling framework also ensures we can model additional host-pest and intervention scenarios for testing potential future forest challenges.  The differences in scenario outcomes will help stakeholders, including forest managers and policy-makers, understand the trade-offs of different intervention techniques when responding to forest pests and help align interventions with forest management priorities.

Understanding the patterns and drivers of viral incidence and abundance is of key importance for understanding pathogen emergence. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the scientific community and the public are now acutely aware there is a vast reservoir of viruses, mostly unknown, in the environment. In plant agricultural systems virus diseases account for yield losses of $30 billion dollars annually to crops worldwide. Viruses are also a major cause of human waterborne and water-related diseases. The emergence of novel viruses and spillover from reservoir host species pose continuous challenges for the management of diseases resulting from emerging viruses. However, our understanding of virus abundance, and their variation in space and time, remains limited. Over the last decade, sequencing of DNA (metagenomics) and RNA (metatranscriptomics) has exponentially expanded our knowledge of virus diversity. For the past 7 years National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) has been collecting and archiving soil samples in the Quabbin Reservoir Watershed, including the Harvard Forest, and at other sites across the US. The NEON data will continue to grow through yearly sampling and metagenomic sequencing over the next two decades. NEON’s charge is to identify bacteria and fungi in the soil through DNA sequencing. NEON generates the raw DNA metagenome sequences, but they do not provide analyses of DNA viruses or sequence soil community RNA. Our goal is to identify novel and emerging viruses in this region and identify host and climatic factors associated with changes in viral abundance. To meet our goal, we will complete the following specific objectives: 1) Determine the spatial distribution of DNA viruses from metagenomes at NEON Quabbin sites in the context of viral species from other U.S. NEON sites. 2) Identify novel and emerging DNA viruses in Quabbin sites and associated climatic factors across in a 10-year time series. 3) Determine spatial and temporal variation in RNA viruses at Quabbin sites over a 3-year window. The Quabbin Reservoir Watershed is located centrally in Massachusetts serving as a sentinel monitoring site for our state and it is the NEON representative site for the broader Northeast Region. As a sentential it informs changes in soil for forestry, agricultural and water quality. We anticipate this research will result in manuscripts corresponding to the specific objectives as well as data sets that can be used in future research and outreach. We will communicate the emergence of viruses relevant to agriculture and forestry to the UMass Amherst Center for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment (CAFE), their educational outreach unit UMass Extension and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). Our industry collaborators are interested in possible biocontrol agents and biotechnology products that can be developed from novel and emerging viruses. 

This study aims to implement and evaluate a Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) program for academic-extension-community teams designed to build research capacity at the community level. The CBPR program will improve our understanding of food security, urban agriculture, dietary-related diseases and social determinants of health, and facilitate a transfer of STEM knowledge between academic-extension-community partners through community engagement. As such, we hope to gain insight into a range of persistent community problems while preparing students, extension educators and community members to be active participants in research programs related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), agriculture and public health.

Agricultural science, nutrition science, and public health often sit at the periphery of STEM, thus negating their intersectionality and collaboration with STEM fields. STEM disciplines and STEM literacy are the basis for careers in public health and agriculture, and inform the application of the latter fields in solving the most pressing health concerns and challenges to equitably and sustainably feeding the world’s population. One mechanism for addressing the STEM-agriculture-health gap includes strengthening university-community partnerships by leveraging extension and community expertise. Enrollment of students in STEM and other learners from historically underserved and other marginalized identities can further ensure that programming centers equity. Undergraduate students can participate in training and community-engaged opportunities through independent studies and research assistantships with faculty. Similarly, graduate students can be involved in the development of professional development opportunities such as the proposed CBPR training, and participate as learners in the training. Faculty can engage in training to strengthen equitable STEM education pedagogies, thus making STEM accessible to students and community learners. These pedagogical skills can prepare undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, extension educators, and community members engage in practices that transform programming, policies, and institutions.

Yet diversity of representation is a consistent challenge in the conduct of research in agriculture and public health. Full participation and perspectives from racially and ethnically diverse communities in agricultural, and public health research is frequently absent, limiting our ability to understand the most pressing food system and health concerns. These gaps also challenge effectiveness in the design and delivery of programs to address community concerns related to health, food security, and poverty. Science education for students in higher education and within communities allows learners to engage in discussions on public health efforts, land tenure, food systems, social determinants of health, and policy action. This study will build research capacity at the community level by delivering science education on benefits of urban agriculture, food security, health care, and healthy lifestyles.

This proposal involves a collaborative effort between researchers at multiple institutions in the US and includes basic and applied research over a wide range of food commodities with a goal of risk-based research and outreach to address the safety of food from farm to fork. The principal investigators (PIs) of many different institutions across the US meet annually to foster and cement collaborations, and expand their many regional and national connections in food commodity production, processing, distribution and retailing across the US. The PIs have, and continue, to work to standardize microbiological methods among laboratories so that results may be directly comparable and reproducible. Whenever appropriate, standard methods such as those from the Compendium of Methods for the Microbiological Examination of Foods, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Bacteriological Analytical Manual (BAM), International Organization for Standardization (ISO) or other applicable sources (AOAC, USDA, etc.) are used for the enumeration or identification of foodborne pathogens. Additionally, records of the specific source of materials and reagents used will also be compared in cases where notable differences are identified, as inconsistencies or differences in the production practices of different suppliers can affect the observed results. The use of standardized, validated methodologies--and the materials used to perform them--are often overlooked but critically important aspects of collaborative studies. PIs of this group have already previously developed and validated many of the methods that we propose to use here. However, additional cross- laboratory validations of new and emerging methods are continually evolving and include: evaluation of strain, inoculum preparation and concentration method, impact of laboratory humidity, and recovery methods.

The need to feed the ever-growing human population while decreasing greenhouse gas emissions from large-scale agriculture remains a global problem of paramount importance. One major source of these emissions is through nitrous oxide (N2O) production, a greenhouse gas with a warming potential nearly 300 times that of CO2. This potent greenhouse gas is formed through the action of soil microbes when they compete for artificial nitrogen fertilizer. While there are synthetic inhibitors that reduce N2O emissions, there can be many off-target effects. A promising alternative to these inhibitors is leveraging the natural ability of some plants to antagonize the microbial production of N2O, termed Biological Nitrification Inhibition (BNI). This ongoing research utilizes the BNI capacity of Sorghum bicolor, a staple grain crop in Africa and Southern Asia intercropped with corn (Zea mays). Plants were grown as monocrops or intercrops with alternating row and mixed seeding at the UMass Crop and Animal Research and Education Farm in South Deerfield, MA. These cropping treatments were repeated with an artificial nitrification inhibitor, DMPP, for comparison. Throughout the growth season, soil gas flux samples were collected via chambers covering the soil and analyzed through gas chromatography. Measured N2O concentrations over time were then converted to overall flux (production and consumption) to determine the reduction in N2O emissions. In addition to gas measurements, soil and roots were destructively sampled periodically throughout the growth season. Community analysis of the bulk soil and rhizosphere will reveal the microbial community’s response to the different cropping systems or the synthetic inhibitor treatment at high levels of resolution. At the end of the field season, plants were harvested to determine overall yield for all treatment groups. This experimental design has been repeated for a second year to account for seasonal variations in weather patterns. Throughout both years of the field trial, we found nearly 20% fewer N20 emissions in the sorghum monocrop plots as well as with mixed seed intercropping with the addition of DMPP, compared to the corn monocrop control. Total plant biomass production was not influenced by either treatment variation.

        The core hypothesis of this work is that the BNI capacity of sorghum will result in more nitrogen fertilizer available for both corn and sorghum when planted in close proximity, as well as reduced N2O emissions. The inhibitory chemicals secreted from the sorghum roots will affect the root zone of corn when planted in a way that both root systems overlap. This effect will lead to more plant-available nitrogen, lower N2O emissions, and higher silage yields for both corn and sorghum in intercropped systems. We expect this effect to be most pronounced in the mixed seeding plots as those plants are grown in the closest proximity. This work will determine the efficacy of intercropping corn, a plant with heavy nitrogen fertilizer needs with sorghum, a plant which has evolved ways to better compete with soil microbes for the available nitrogen applied as fertilizer, compared to the commercial inhibitor DMPP. To better understand the role of soil biological processes in controlling plant available nitrogen, a subsequent, complimentary experiment will be carried out this year to uncover the mechanism of action of the sorghum inhibition. These experiments together investigate a promising alternative to the current synthetic inhibitors in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in large-scale agriculture, while simultaneously reducing the amounts of artificial nitrogen fertilizer required to grow corn in today’s agriculture. Both resulting effects, the increased nitrogen fertilizer availability and reduced N2O production, will directly support the chosen objective, and widen our understanding of soil health and resilience. Resilience of this agricultural system is further supported by the documented drought resistance of sorghum, which will be needed with the expected longer drought periods in the currently changing climate. These changes will directly affect farmers who produce crops for silage.