In the Pacific, El Nino acts as a natural analog for climate change impacts at timescales relevant to microbes. However, in coastal environments, little is known about the in situ bacterial response to prolonged warming and nutrient limitation, as well as its corresponding biogeochemical impacts. This project uses hundreds of nearshore samples from 2011-2020, collected across a 2015 El Nino event, to: (1) identify metabolic adaptations of coastal bacteria populations to warming and changing anthropogenic nutrient supply, and, (2) link those changes to coastal carbon cycling and biogeochemistry.
Proposer: Alyse Larkin-Swartout, University of California Irvine
Proposal: Detecting nutrient limitation and coastal biogeochemical responses to El Nino using microbial eco-genomic biomarkers