Microbial communities off the coast of Delaware have high concentrations of dissolved organic carbon. Sequencing the genomes of stable and transitory microbial communities in the area will provide information on how the communities have changed over several years and provide insights into the roles these microbes play in breaking down carbon trapped and how the… [Read More]

Chlorophototrophic organisms use photochemical reaction centers to convert light energy into chemical energy. The microbial mats consisting of these microbes in the alkaline siliceous hot springs of Yellowstone National Park (YNP) have been studied for decades as models for understanding the composition, structure and function of microbial communities. For the project, six microbial mat communities… [Read More]

The Etoliko lagoon of western Greece is a methane-rich environment with a distinct oxygen-poor or anoxic zone. Nearly two dozen microbes will be sequenced to better understand he biodiversity in this lagoon with essentially two ecosystems. Principal Investigators: George Tsiamis, University of Ioannina, Greece Program: CSP 2011 [Read More]

Marine bacterioplankton are critical for the global carbon cycling and also hold enormous genetic potential for bioenergy applications. However, many of these microbes cannot be cultured in a lab for study. One way to learn more about these microbes is through single cell genomics, and this project calls for the de novo sequencing of 30… [Read More]

The project focuses on using single-cell genomics to sequence nearly a dozen genomes of uncultivated bacteria that are found in deep-sea hydrothermal vents to learn about their roles in the global carbon, sulfur and nitrogen cycles. Additionally, the genomic information could be used to reduce sulfur emissions and resulting smog and acid rain. Principal Investigators:… [Read More]

According to an International Panel on Climate Change report, as much as 12 percent of methane, a greenhouse gas considered to be far more potent than carbon dioxide, is not included in the current budget of methane flux and sink that can be produced within the Earth’s crust by microbial processes. To better understand the… [Read More]

Bacteria known as methylotrophs use carbon compounds that are greenhouse gases and many of them are also have potential applications for cleaning up areas contaminated by hazardous pollutants such as halogenated methanes. To better understand how C1 compounds are involved in the global carbon cycle and to more accurately predict the global effects of environmental… [Read More]

More than 100 microbes have been sequenced as part of the Genome Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea (GEBA) project to provide information on unrepresented branches of the Tree of Life. Now the team plans to sequence another several dozen bacteria and archaea not just to increase the phylogenetic reference genomes but to also identify new… [Read More]

Members of the phylum Acidobacteria have been found in soils worldwide, and their sheer numbers suggest that they play ecologically significant roles though as yet undetermined in the soil environment. To better understanding the contributions of these bacteria to the terrestrial carbon cycle, as well as expand the Genome Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea, several… [Read More]

Previous collaborations between the University of Washington team and the DOE JGI involving both single genome and metagenomic sequencing have greatly enhanced the community’s ability to explore the diversity of bacteria functionally active in metabolism of single carbon compounds, known as methylotrophs, isolated from Lake Washington (Seattle, Washington) sediment. Sequencing genomes of 50 methylotroph isolates… [Read More]