Thermophilic fungi have been an important source of industrial enzymes for decades but research and development efforts have historically focused on the identification and characterization of cellulolytic genes from just a few strains. This approach has produced advanced enzymes over time, but recent genomics-based investigation has almost instantaneously yielded a diverse palette of novel, thermostable,…
Reducing methane emission from peatlands
Peatlands harbor up to one third of the world pool of soil carbon and are estimated to be responsible for as much as 20 percent of the global emission of the greenhouse gas methane. Sequencing the metagenome and metatranscriptome of peat soil, and in particular, the rare peatland Desulfosporosinus species, as well as potentially novel…
Developing Schizophyllum commune as a model system
The study of wood breakdown into simple sugars is an important field of research due to its possible application in biofuel production. Developing S. commune as a model system to study the processes of wood degradation would allow researchers to study roles of enzymes in a fungus for which exist many protocols for studying genes…
Microbes that thrive in serpentinized environments
Serpentinization is a common process that is extremely important for transporting water towards the mantle and for fixing large amounts of carbon as carbonate rocks. The Cedars Peridotite is a site in Northern California where active serpentinization occurs, resulting in spring waters that are so extreme that no current paradigms of microbial metabolism are compatible…
Genome sequencing of 100 Thioalkalivibrio strains
The project aims to sequence the genomes of 100 strains of the genus Thioalkalivibrio. Members of this genus have an enormous metabolic and genetic diversity. Isolated from various soda lakes around the world, the strains were selected for their industrial relevance in the sustainable removal of sulfur from waste streams and energy carriers, such as…
Microbial lifestyles in Lake Vida
The microbial community inhabiting Antarctica’s Lake Vida resides in a block of ice several meters thick that has a large reservoir of liquid brine entrained in the ice below 14 meters and a mixture of ice/icy sediment layers below 21 meters. The ice-entrained, anoxic brine is among the coldest, stable liquid cryoecosystems known on Earth…
Carbon Processing in the Sea
Marine bacterioplankton comprise the largest living surface area in the sea. They detect, transport, and assimilate bioreactive constituents from the dissolved organic carbon pool, transforming them to particulate matter or recycling them back to an inorganic form. Ruegeria pomeroyi DSS-3 was isolated in 1998 from southeastern U.S. coastal seawater and has become a model organism…
DNA & RNA datasets from forest soil communities
Forests are vast ecosystems with critical functions in global nutrient cycling. They also represent an enormous and potentially sustainable source of biomass feedstock for the production of fuels, chemicals and materials. Samples from well-characterized Long- Term Soil Productivity Study (LTSP) sites representing six distinct ecoregions across North America will be compared to reveal effects on…
Arctic microbial community diversity
The poles are still one of them most unexplored ecosystems on our planet in terms of microbial genetic diversity. While marine microbes in this region are known to emit greenhouse gases such as dimethyl sulfide, not much is known yet about the molecular underpinnings of these globally important processes, nor how the microbes drive these…
Recovering freshwater metagenomes
Lakes serve as sentinels and integrators of large-scale environmental change because they respond rapidly to climatic drivers and are tightly connected to their surrounding landscapes. Microbial communities drive the flow of carbon through these lakes by processing dissolved organic carbon, breaking down particulate organic carbon, fixing and respiring large quantities of carbon dioxide, quenching methane…