Duckweed is a family of aquatic plants that are capable of quickly converting wastewater into an easily harvestable biomass with low lignin content. Recent research has demonstrated the potential of duckweed to be used as a sustainable source of renewable biomass for biofuel. While scaling-up duckweed farming does not require the use of arable land…
Pine-Suillus Symbiosis Study
Ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) are emerging as a model system for understanding microbial community dynamics and the linkages between microbial communities and ecosystem function. EMF provide their plant hosts with nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous, and water, in exchange for fixed carbon. Trade between the two partners constitutes a significant ecosystem flux in resources between plant…
A Permafrost Thaw Chronosequence in Sweden
Permafrost is a key globally important ecosystem, storing massive amounts of carbon across a large area. Permafrost-associated soils cover nearly a quarter of the terrestrial land surface, contain more than a third of the world’s soil carbon, and are thawing due to climate change. The fate of the stored carbon is a key unknown in…
Model for Methane and Microbial Metabolism
Methane hydrates are pockets of methane trapped inside a solid structure of water and are often found in ocean floor sediments. Marine continental margin sediments that bear these methane hydrates are estimated to contain up to 2,000 billion metric tons of methane. Anaerobic methanotrophic archaea and sulfate-reducing bacteria (ANME-SRB consortia) account for the oxidation of…
Testing synthesized genes in A. niger
Aspergillus niger is used in industry for the production of enzymes for biomass degradation and other applications. It is also a useful host for expressing glycoside hydrolase (GH) genes from bacteria that have valuable properties. However, researchers do not fully understand the factors that provide high titer production of heterologous enzymes in fungal hosts. The…
Intraspecies Diversity in Fungal Wood Decay
This project focuses on the diversity of isolates of the white rot basidiomycete Dichomitus squalens.
Examining a predominant Deepwater Horizon microbe
Single-cell genomics unravels a microbial species’ role in breaking down hydrocarbons. The Science: Researchers sequenced and analyzed a single cell of Colwellia bacteria to understand why these microbes were predominant in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The Impact: Understanding the characteristics of the Colwellia bacteria furthers the researchers understanding of…
DOE JGI, EMSL Announce 2015 Collaborative Science Projects
Combining complementary resources for greater scientific understanding. The U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) and the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) have accepted 12 projects submitted during the 2014 call for Collaborative Science Initiative proposals. The collaborative call represents a unique opportunity for researchers to combine the power of genomics and molecular characterization in…
Microbial Interactions in Agricultural Soils
Growing crops as bioenergy feedstocks requires researchers to focus on soil management and better understand the soil carbon cycle. However, the data on soil microbiology is still limited, preventing researchers from incorporating this information into biogeochemical models. To this end, the project focuses on the microbial interactions in agricultural soils, with the goal of identifying…
FECB: A Functional Encyclopedia of Cyanobacteria
The DOE JGI’s Genomic Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea (GEBA) project has been filling the genomic gaps in the prokaryotic tree of life. One offshoot of the project, called GEBA-Cyano, focuses on improving the understanding of the genetic basis of cyanobacterial ecophysiology. Cyanobacteria are eminently DOE mission-relevant organisms, playing key roles in global carbon and…