Analyze the relationships between nitrogen-fixing plant communities, the corresponding microbial communities, and their environment to elucidate the driving evolutionary and environmental pressures that initially enabled and continues to cause changes in the nitrogen-fixing symbiosis.

This project aims to extend current macrosystem biological understanding to include throughfall (TF) and stemflow (SF) particulate concentrations, fluxes and composition, specifically addressing 3 major objectives: (1) estimate the net rainfall water and particulate mass flux across forest types; (2) characterize the particulate composition of TF and SF; and (3) identify major drivers of macrosystem variability in net rainfall particulate flux and composition.