There is significant current interest in hydrogen as a potential energy source for a variety of applications, and there is a concerted effort to explore the use of whole organisms or biomimetic materials to produce hydrogen as a fuel. In addition, although fuel-cell technology is well developed, the projected dependence on platinum may rapidly exceed…
Why Sequence a Biogas-Producing Microbial Community?
The world population is steadily growing, and so is the amount of waste produced by human activity. For example, an estimated 236 million tons of municipal solid waste are produced annually in the U.S., 50% of which is biomass. At the same time, energy sources are rapidly depleting. Converting organic waste to renewable biofuel by…
Why Sequence Anammox Bacteria?
The deep sediments and oxygen minimum zones of the world’s oceans are assumed to be responsible for the majority of nitrogen loss on earth. The microbes responsible for the nitrogen loss were long unknown, but compelling evidence is now accumulating that marine anaerobic ammonium oxidizing (anammox) bacteria are responsible, making them very important players in…
Why Sequence Type I Accumulibacter?
Enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) is a wastewater treatment process used throughout the world to protect surface waters from accelerated eutrophication (overgrowth due to nutrient pollution). The microbial assemblages carrying out EBPR in lab-scale and full-scale wastewater treatment plants are ideal model systems in which to study the forces driving community, population, and genome dynamics,…
Why Sequence Tetrahymena thermophila?
The ciliated protozoan Tetrahymena thermophila is a microbial model organism for a wide variety of research disciplines. In addition to its proven importance as a model system for discovering fundamental principles of eukaryotic biology, it is the most experimentally amenable member of the Alveolates (e.g., disease-causing Plasmodium) and of the evolutionarily diverse ciliate species that…
Why Sequence Conifers?
Conifers represent an ancient and diverse branch in higher plant evolution. Some conifer species dominate modern-day ecosystems that are repositories for large amounts of terrestrial sequestered carbon, while others exist in populations numbering tens of individuals. Conifer forests are among the most productive in terms of annual lignocellulosic biomass generation, and coniferous trees are the…
Why Sequence Phaeocystis globosa?
Photosynthetic marine microalgae, particularly the relatively few species that form massive blooms, are responsible for half of total global carbon fixation, on the order of 45-50 billion tons of production annually. The chlorophyll c-containing haptophyte alga genus Phaeocystis is distributed globally and forms massive blooms that structure planktonic ecosystems, export significant amounts of materials to…
Why Sequence Phaeocystis antarctica?
Phaeocystis is a group of important unicellular, photosynthetic, eukaryotic algae distributed throughout the world’s oceans. Representatives of this genus live in the open ocean as well as in sea ice. A unique attribute of Phaeocystis is its ability to form a floating colony with hundreds of cells embedded in a polysaccharide gel matrix that can…
Why Sequence Paxillus involutus?
More than 75% of the carbon in terrestrial ecosystems is stored in forests. More than half of this carbon is found in soil organic matter (SOM). Recent studies have indicated that ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi provide the dominant pathway through which carbon enters the SOM pool. The same fungi also drive the cycling of other nutrients…
Why Sequence a Liverwort?
The origin of land plants (embryophytes) was one of the major evolutionary events in the history of planet earth. Experimental, paleontological, morphological, and molecular systematic data all point to the liverworts as being some of the first plants to evolve and colonize the Ordovician landscape. Thus liverworts are a key group to include in any…