Taking advantage

I suppose I should follow up on yesterday's rant about "What to ignore?"  Although the narrow mindset of some scientists bothers me, I am actually taking advantage of some questions ignored by others.

The recent call to include inland waters (lakes, streams, rivers) in the global carbon (C) cycle (1) motivates a lot of my current research.  Why?  Because inland waters process at least half of the C they receive from terrestrial ecosystems (2; figure below) - C cycling models assume this C is stored in terrestrial ecosystems (even though it is respired, stored or transported by inland waters).

In other words, large-scale C models have ignored the role of inland waters.  If freshwater ecosystems are included in these models, they are merely "pipes" or transport vectors, not C processors.

One of the major questions now is how to include freshwater C cycling in predictive landscape-scale C cycling models.  My current research is focused on quantifying and modeling the drivers of C inputs, cycling and availability in freshwater ecosystems.

So...I suppose I should really be grateful for what has been ignored?

It certainly makes my own research more meaningful and exciting.

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READING: (1) Battin et al. (2009) The boundless carbon cycle. Nature Geoscience. 

(2) Cole et al. (2007) Plumbing the Global Carbon Cycle: Integrating Inland Waters into the Terrestrial Carbon Budget. Ecosystems.
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