Newswise Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have received a five-year, $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study how complex microbial systems use their genetic diversity to respond to human-induced change. The work is important because these microbial communities play critical roles in the environment, breaking down pollutants, recycling nutrients and serving as major sources of nitrogen and carbon.

Despite the importance of the microbes, relatively few among the thousands of species that make up a typical microbial community have been studied extensively. The relatively unknown organisms within these communities may have genes that could help address critical environmental, energy and other challenges.

We are all dependent on these microbes, said Kostas Konstantinidis, an assistant professor in Georgia Techs School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the grants principal investigator. There are many different species and a huge amount of diversity out there. This project will allow us to look at the details of how this diversity is generated, how redundant it is and how these microbes are changing in response to perturbations in the environment.

The funding, from the NSFs Dimensions of Biodiversity program, will support a collaborative effort involving Konstantinidis and two other Georgia Tech researchers: Eberhardt Voit and Jim Spain. Voit holds the David D. Flanagan Chair in Biological Systems within the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and is a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar. Spain is a professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

The research will initially focus on Lake Lanier, a large man-made lake located near Atlanta. Beyond the experimental work, the research will involve extensive mathematical modeling of the complex microbial communities.

We want to see how the microbial communities of the lake change over time, and how the perturbations affect that, said Konstantinidis, who holds the Carlton S. Wilder Chair in Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech. We then want to extend our understanding to other ecosystems, such as the Gulf of Mexico.

The researchers will set up mesocosms bioreactors in the laboratory with microbial populations from Lake Lanier. They will feed these populations pollutants such as hydrocarbons, antibiotics and pesticides to see how they respond and how they deal with compounds to which they may not have been exposed.

Sometimes they may not have the genes to break down the pollutants and may not encode the right enzymes, Konstantinidis said. But if you give them enough time, these microbes somehow innovate. We want to understand the genetic mechanisms that allow the microbes to break down a compound that they are seeing for the first time.

The grant will allow the Georgia Tech researchers to expand knowledge of rare microbes, largely unknown organisms that may harbor useful genes.

We think these unusual microbes may be the key ones, Konstantinidis said. Though they may be low in abundance, the whole community may depend on them. When you have a new pollutant, these rare microbes may become more important by providing the genetic diversity needed.

Follow this link:
Researchers Study How Diversity Helps Microbial Communities Respond to Change

Comments are closed.