Switchgrass has been championed as a promising cellulosic feedstock based on its broad adaptability, abiotic stress tolerance, and high yields with low inputs. Researchers still need a detailed understanding of the genetic or molecular basis of these attributes or how they arose over evolutionary time. They also need more information on the role of microbial…
Anaerobic Fungi for Biogas Production
Anaerobic fungi can break down plant mass and are best studied from the digestive tract of ruminants. During their life cycles, the fungal zoospores recognize and swim toward ingested plant matter and attach to its surface before penetrating the plant cells. In this way, fibrous lignocellulose rich substrates can be mechanically degraded. In addition to mechanical degradation,…
Carbon Cycling in Northern Aquatic Ecosystems
The boreal forests play a central role in global carbon cycling, storing 37 percent of the total carbon present in the terrestrial biosphere. Owing to the high density of lakes in the boreal forest, these freshwater systems play a particularly important role in the carbon cycle. Often boreal lakes are supersaturated in carbon dioxide, resulting…
Photosynthesis in Chlamydomonas
Photosynthesis is the biological process that uses the energy of sunlight to drive the primary production of organic carbon in the biosphere. Despite its fundamental importance, researchers have not yet identified all of the genes that are required for photosynthesis. To identify potentially hundreds of new genes that are necessary for photosynthesis, researchers plan to…
RAISE the Standard
As part of the ongoing diversity & inclusion efforts at the JGI, the Diversity & Inclusion Working Group developed a poster asking people to “RAISE the Standard“: Respect. Act as a mentor. Include Everyone. Support a healthy work-life balance. Encourage risk-taking. The new poster will be placed in the conference rooms.
Deep Sequencing of Dikarya
Fungi perform essential ecological functions, both beneficial and harmful. The ecology of most of the 1.5- 6 million fungal species is unknown. The current 1000 Fungal Genomes (1KFG) and associated CSPs (e.g., Mycorrhizal Genomics Initiative, Saprotrophic Basidiomycetes) have been mostly successful in sampling genomes of members of the Dikarya. The results have included an increased…
Shale Gas Extraction Impact on Microbes
Due to the high cost of drilling and maintaining sample integrity, there has been very little research on microbial life in pristine hydrocarbon-bearing shale ecosystems. This project provides necessary information needed to plan for future energy and resource needs. Advances in high throughput genomics afford the first opportunity to deeply characterize microbial phylogenetic diversity and…
Understanding Sugar Accumulation in Sorghum
The goal of the project is to identify and characterize the biological pathways and their regulators that enable sucrose accumulation in sweet sorghum, whose genome was sequenced by the DOE JGI. Understanding the genetic mechanisms underlying sugar production and storage in sorghum is of great interest to both biologists and breeders, and the genes in…
Genomic Survey of Lentinula genus
Lentinula is a group of white-rot, wood-decaying fungi that is famous as the genus of shiitake mushrooms, Lentinula edodes. Today, shiitake is cultivated worldwide, and it is second only to the button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus, a previous DOE JGI project, in terms of production volume. However, the diversity within cultivars is dwarfed by the genetic…
Microbial Controls on Carbon Cycling in Freshwater Lakes
The role of lakes in the global carbon budget has previously been underestimated. The total amount of organic matter stored in the sediments of lakes and reservoirs is estimated to exceed that stored in the sediments of the world’s oceans. Freshwater lakes can act as net sources or sinks of atmospheric carbon, and microbes mediate…